


Storm Season

by Kenjiandco



Series: Storm Season Verse [1]
Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra, Haikyuu!!
Genre: Adventures, Earthbender Iwaizumi, Eventual Smut, Falling In Love, Fluff and Smut, Friends to Lovers, Glider Pilot Oikawa, M/M, Minor Slurs, blind iwaizumi, brief injury/blood mentions, desert islands, legend of korra AU, squirrelotters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-15
Updated: 2016-11-13
Packaged: 2018-05-26 19:56:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 46,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6253855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kenjiandco/pseuds/Kenjiandco
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A glider pilot in service to the Air Temples, all Oikawa really wants to do is fly. But you gotta pay the bills, and sometimes that means being a glorified taxi service for some useless Earth Nation noble named Iwaizumi Hajime...but he's not turning out to be what Oikawa expected. </p><p>(Extremely handsome was not one of the things he expected)</p><p>Iwaizumi's got a few secrets of his own.  He's not sure he really wants to study at the Air Temples. He's terrified of flying in a glider. He's got a secret career as an underground wrestler that his protective mother doesn't know about. </p><p>But everyone has to take a few risks during Storm Season.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Seijoh

**Author's Note:**

> A few notes:
> 
> This AU developed as a result of much late night texting with Lemonorangelime, love of my life, who designed Oikawa and Iwaizumi's [amazing LoK looks](http://lemondoodles.tumblr.com/image/139151652012)
> 
> Q: How does this AU line up with Legend of Korra?  
> A: Timewise, this is set maybe five years before the start of Legend of Korra canon - No Amon, Korra's still training in the Arctic, etc. 
> 
> Q: If this is set in Legend of Korra timeline why does Iwaizumi the blind earth bending wrestler seem so very similar to Toph?  
> A: Shhhhhhhhhh it's a secret

 

From the air, Seijoh was a solid mass of green.

Oikawa had to check his heading half a dozen times on his final approach over the island.. Even when he dipped low enough for his glider’s wheels to brush the treetops, his destination was all but invisible from above, hidden under trailing vines and leaves.

He spotted his landing site on the second pass: a narrow patch of open green grass stretched across a ridge top under the trees, and a brief flash of ivory stone.

 _Castle Iwaizumi._ Oikawa snorted to himself, the sound lost in the rushing wind, and kicked the _Furudate_ into a shallow dive. The glider bumped twice and then braked to a gentle halt on a wide, smooth stretch of lawn. Could’ve been designed to be a glider runway. Oikawa shoved his goggles up into his windblown hair and surveyed the expanse with a satisfied smile. Not so much as a scuff mark on the clipped, velvety grass.

He gave his glider the standard walk-around, trailing his fingers over the wing struts and their stretched canvas skins, and locked the wheels in place. Only once he was thoroughly satisfied with the condition of his beloved _Furudate_ did he turn to look up towards the house on the hill.

The white stone mansion glittered in the sun. It was a world apart from Republic City, just a short hop across the bay. Everything in the city was new, rough and half-finished and hungry for more. In the silence of Seijoh’s mountains, high above the frenetic boat traffic on the coast, age and tranquility radiated off the stones.

Oikawa paused on the steps, between the fluted columns that framed dark wood doors. A jungle of Seijoh’s famous emerald vines wound up the stone and spread fine green creepers across the walls. Oikawa reached through the heart-shaped leaves and trailed his fingertips up the trunk beneath, knotted and gnarled and nearly as thick as his wrist.

Down in the port town below the mountain, they said the Avatar had stayed here, most of a hundred years ago, when the island was still a fire nation colony at the fringes of the Earth Kingdom. These vines were already old when Aang had walked under them.

The tips of trailing leaves tugged through his hair as he stepped under the arch. Oikawa frowned at the heavy doors. There was no bell or knocker, and he wondered how he was going to get enough noise out of this thick, dense wood to be heard. He shrugged and raised a fist anyway.

the doors swung inward an instant before his knuckles touched the wood. Oikawa blinked, but he had his cool smile back in place by the time the young man in the entryway straightened up from his formal bow.

“Welcome to the Iwaizumi Estate,” he intoned. “Your arrival has been anticipated.”

 _What tipped you off, the twenty foot plane buzzing the back garden?_ Oikawa thought. He grinned at the silver-haired steward. “Nice trick. Hidden peephole?”

The kid’s entire posture crumpled with disappointment. “Mirror…” he mumbled, pointing up to a small notch in the arch over the door. Sure enough, it contained a small mirror, set at just the right angle to show anyone standing on the doorstep.  

“Most people don’ notice…” He pouted, and Oikawa smirked. “I guess you’d better follow me, the Lady’s waiting in the courtyard. I’m Lev Haiba, by the way. AT your service, probably.” With his polished formal manners melted away, he had a faint, rolling accent Oikawa couldn’t place.

“Oikawa Tooru. Probably?”

Lev shrugged, a few steps ahead of Oikawa in the long, polished entrance hall. “I’m at _everyone’s_ service ‘til the Lady kicks em out.” He wrinkled his nose. “Which doesn’t take long sometimes. I try to be nice about it... “ His green eyes widened and he stopped dead and slapped both hands over his mouth. “I shouldn’t’ve said that, please don’t tell her I said that.”

Oikawa laughed. “Hey, I’m hired help too. Your secret’s safe with me.”

He followed Lev through a veritable maze of arched passages, lined and tiled in the same ivory stone, wondering idly how it would play out if “the Lady” _did_ order him removed. The gangly steward was deceptively tall, taller than Oikawa which was unusual enough, but the way he hunched to hide it seemed subconscious, not calculated. He hid his height to avoid accidently looming, not to disguise some kind of combat prowess. And he talked like he didn’t much enjoy being Lady Iwaizumi’s de facto bouncer. Apparently she had quite the temper, too...he’d have to be careful...loath though he was to admit it, he _really_ needed the money.

Lev paused for just a second in front of an elaborate archway that opened into a lush, manicured courtyard. He shot Oikawa a quick warning glance, and, well, Oikawa had spent enough time ferrying around the rich and noble to recognize that look, one servant to another. _Put your mask back on._

Oikawa schooled his features into a mask of perfect Air Acolyte courtesy as Lev stepped just through the archway and rattled off some kind of long, formal introduction. He couldn’t help but gawk, just a little, and the landscaping. The interior courtyard had a goddamn _stream_ running through it, and as he watched a bright gold carp jumped into the air under a little waterfall and fell back into a deep pool with a splash. Lev pointed him across a little footbridge, wrapped in more Seijoh vines that were blooming despite the late season, to a little stone patio. The small trees surrounding the stone had been trained as they grew, slender branches woven together into a natural sun shade.

Beneath the elaborate living awning, a middle aged lady - _The_ Lady, he supposed - watched him with sharp, dark eyes, the rest of her face hidden behind a painted silk fan. As Lev finished his introduction, she shut the fan with a snap - a distinctly Fire Nation affectation for an Earth Kingdom noblewoman. Oikawa wondered briefly if he should change up his greeting, but her dress was all Earth kingdom finery of the highest tradition. Best to stick to the plan - servants speak first. He gave her a short, formal bow from the waist.

“Iwaizumi-sama is most kind to allow me into her home.”

Lady Iwaizumi gave him an approving nod, setting her fan aside. _Nailed it._ “Air Nation courtesy,” she said, her voice surprisingly deep for such a sharp face and thin frame. “They certainly do raise their service well.”

 _I was raised in Seijoh,_ Oikawa thought, years of practice keeping the bitter twist off his face. _Lower Seijoh, of course. But that’s a secret...you couldn’t suffer some Vinetown brat flying your precious little princeling off to school, could you, My Lady?_

“The Lady’s honor is due only to my teachers,” he said aloud. Rule one of hiring on with the nobility: lay it on with a fucking trowel.  

Lady Iwaizumi gave him another long stare. Her traditional headdress, a cylindrical, flat-topped brocade construction almost two feet high, required absolutely perfect, motionless posture. The elaborate tassels dangling from each corner were still, apparently immune to the light breeze. It was like being eyeballed by a stone statue.

“You know why we engaged your services rather than an air-bison charter?” She snapped, pointing with her closed fan. Oikawa blinked. The veins were metal, and their razor-sharpened edges glinted dangerously a few inches from his nose. Oikawa mentally changed gears: fighting fans were serious, and above all _dangerous_ weapons, and there weren’t many people with the skill to handle deceptively heavy things so casually. The Lady Iwaizumi probably didn’t _need_ Lev to be her bouncer.

He shrugged, cautiously dropping some of his overly-formal mask. “Storm season, I presume. The bison don’t fly during hurricane weather.” It made sense: even a hundred years on, there were still precious few flying bison in the world, but the Ba Sing Se workshops could turn out a new glider in two days. Gliders were replaceable, when the hurricanes came calling. Glider _pilots_ even more so. “ _Quite.”_ The Lady sniffed, taking a sip from her bone-china mug. “The journey by boat to the Southern Air Temple is _quite_ intolerable, and my son is a delicate boy.” She fixed Oikawa with that stone-statue stare again. “I am placing my only child’s life in your hands. I assume you have no children of your own?”

Oikawa blinked again. He didn’t like how often this stern-faced noblewoman with filigree feathers in her hair was catching him off-guard. He shook his head, and she sighed, the carved lines of her face softening for a bare second.

“Of course not. Then I cannot fully expect you to grasp the gravity of what I am entrusting you with. The outside world is a dangerous place, _especially_ for my son...I would of course keep him safe here, if the Air Temple did not offer such a... _unique_ opportunity for a boy without--ah, Alisa.  Thank you, you may go.”

The girl in the doorway (who just _had_ to be Lev’s sister, unless white-blondes with bright green eyes had become commonplace since he’d last been to Seijoh) bobbed a curtsey. But rather than withdraw immediately, she came forward, leading a young man by the arm--

Oikawa’s frown actually made it onto his face before he got himself under control again. From the way the Lady spoke, he’d been expecting a child, and a delicate and sickly one at that. But Iwaizume Hajime looked close to his own age: he couldn’t be younger than his late teens, and he was tall and solidly built. And being led by a servant girl…

His mother said something soft, too soft for Oikawa to catch, but her son’s head turned towards her, tilting as though he was triangulating on the sound...and his eyes slid and slipped over Oikawa without registering him. Oikawa swallowed a soft gasp as realization dawned.

Iwaizume Hajime’s eyes were dark green, like his mother’s...or maybe had been once. But they were covered, iris and pupil alike, with cloudy gray and white, and they moved randomly over his surroundings while he tilted his head to hear.

He was blind.

He was also, Oikawa’s hindbrain noted, quite handsome...in the same carved-from-stone way as his mother. He wore feather ornaments behind his ears too, although his were gold - some kind of inscrutable status symbol meant for impressing other nobles, no doubt. But he was too young to have mastered his mother’s effortless poise, and his emotionless stillness came off sullen and sulky.

“Hajime,” the Lady said, as Alisa winked at Oikawa and withdrew. “This is the pilot who will be conducting you to the Air Temple.” Oikawa bowed formally, realizing as he did so that it was probably useless. But Iwaizumi-the-younger jerked his head in response: he clearly knew how this was supposed to go.

“The flight is how long?” he demanded shifting restlessly.

“Two days, Iwaizumi-san,” Oikawa replied, talking-to-nobles mask firmly back in place, with another bow. He pretended not to see the way the other boy’s lip curled at the title. “Presuming the winds are with us.”

“And the moment the winds are _not_ with you, you will set down and await safe conditions,” the Lady snapped. “I am employing you- at rather considerable cost, I might add - to safely transport my son, not go looking for trouble.” Oikawa sighed inwardly. _No, lady, I fly through hurricanes just for fun. Just a_ lark, _you know. You make emergency flights through winter storms at the South Pole that they don’t let bison within a hundred miles of, and tell me about_ looking for trouble…

He knew it was entirely irrational, but as the Lady Iwaizumi launched into a thorough detailing of what she expected of _his services,_ Oikawa couldn’t quite shake the feeling that her son was staring at him.

The sun was setting (spectacularly) over the mountains by the time the Lady saw fit to release him. There was a room made available for his use in the servant’s quarters, where he would of course be expected to remain until their departure at first light, to catch the rising wind that went out with the morning tides. No servant employed by the illustrious Iwaizumi household would be of the quality to go _fraternizing_ down on the docks in Vinetown…

Oikawa gave his glider one last check, carefully brushing a few fallen leaves off the wing skins, and then grinned thoughtfully at the road down the mountain and the barred gate...the tall, spiky, and oh so very _climbable_ gate…

A good runup and a jump put him firmly on the crossbar halfway up, feet kicking for purchase on the elaborately worked iron. Foothold, foothold, handhold, _kick,_ and Oikawa dropped into the deepening on the far side of the gate, and trotted off to go looking for trouble.

The district they called Vinetown was the lowest part of Seijoh island, a rambling, rusty and salt-crusted sprawl of industry-gone-wild that crowded up against the seafront like a wave breaking in the wrong direction. Like the rest of the island, the lower slopes had a faint haze of green from the climbing vines...but down near the docks, it was different.

Sometime in the last hundred years, since the Fire Nation’s nascent empire crumbled and the Earth Kingdom opened its walls again, Seijoh’s native vines had turned cannibal. The smart money said it was some kind of hybrid, a new breed of creeper that crossbred with the natives and produced...something new. Something _invasive,_ not like the old, slow growing, vines up at Iwaizumi manor. This plant took over everything in its path, overwhelming buildings with a sheer _mass_ of plantlife heavy enough to pull down power lines and crumble walls. Higher up the mountain, townhouses and manors hired gardeners and bought pesticides and carefully tended their well-behaved native vines. But down by the docks, where everyone was too poor, too overworked, or too drunk to contend with the wave of greenery swallowing the city...that was Vinetown.

Oikawa took a long, deep breath of the rotten-fish reek, as a cracked door next to him banged open against the wall and disgorged most of a lively tavern brawl into the narrow, muddy alley. It was _nice_ to come home occasionally.

It really helped him appreciate how much time he got to spend away from it.

He hopped lightly over a few flailing limbs and stepped out into the guttering lamplight - most of Vinetown still ran on old, smelly yellow oil lamps - to consider his options. There were just so many possible ways to betray the trust of his noble employers up the hill.

The ground underfoot shook, hard enough to rustle the masses of leaves and rain dust and dead vines down all around him. In Vinetown, on a high-tide night when the fishing boats were stuck in the harbor, that meant only one thing. Oikawa grinned, and shook the falling leaves out of his hair.

It didn’t take him long to find what he was looking for: a closed door with a few heavily built and hard-to-impress men lurking unobtrusively outside of it. One of them arched a scar-bisected eyebrow as Oikawa wandered over.

“You’re a long way from home, Twinkletoes,” he rumbled, beady eyes taking in Oikawa’s red-and-gold jacket and the goggles in his hair.

“Get fucked, ya viney bastard,” Oikawa replied cheerfully. “Don’t stand still too long, they’ll think you’re a rock and grow right over your face. Do us all a favor, that would.” This was what passed for friendly pleasantries in Vinetown.

“Local boy after all, eh?” The other bouncer said, pushing the door open and motioning him through.

Oikawa threw them both a sarcastic salute and trotted down a narrow flight of dank basement stairs, a faint rumbling growing louder with every step. He shouldered through the door at the bottom, and the rumble became a solid _wall_ of noise.

It took a moment for the senses to adjust to the sheer _space_ below, after the cramped and dripping stairway. It was the kind of underground cavern you got in a city full of broke, creative, and frequently wasted earthbenders: a combination of several surrounding cellars excavated out into one big, bowl-shaped pit, with ragged floors sloping down down to a relatively small area of flat, dusty floor. The sides of the pit were packed with people, the air thick with excitement and mud and cheap dockside booze. Oikawa grinned again, letting the energy and adrenaline and pure atmospheric _sleaze_ wash away the stifling rigidity of the manor on top of the mountain.

Earthbender wrestling had gained some legitimacy, even as it hemorrhaged audiences to the glitzy Pro Bending arenas in Republic City, but the underground circuit was always where the _real_ action was at.

He’d picked a good time to wander in - the wrestling ring at the bottom of the pit was empty except for a skinny announcer in a ragged suit, deeply invested in his warm-up spiel.  His voice, through the cheap, cracked megaphone, was an unintelligible mess of feedback and reverb by the time in reached Oikawa at the top of the seats. He caught a single phrase: Mad Dog - apparently the stocky kid with ragged blond hair, leaning against the ropes and trying to look disinterested. Oikawa thought he was wearing goggles until he turned his head: the black stripes wrapping around the back of his skull were shaved right into his dyed hair.

Mad Dog turned slowly in place, glowering out at the mildly enthused crowd. He’d ringed his big, round eyes with some kind of smudgy black eyeliner, and Oikawa privately marked him as about seventeen, and trying desperately to look older.

The noise for Mad Dog - a fairly equal mix of cheers, applause, and raucous catcalls - faded, and the announcer was already well into his buildup for the next fighter. The crows was way ahead of him, echoes of excitement and c hatter coalescing into a thundering chant - one word, over and over.

“ _Seijoh! Seijoh! Seijoh!”_

A wrestler using _Seijoh_ as a stage name? The name of the island itself? Oikawa didn’t know if he was more impressed or pissed off by the pure audacity. He headed down the narrow ramp, shamelessly shouldering by anyone in his way. This warranted a closer look.

As he neared the bottom of the ramp, close to the edge of the ring itself, the press of people around him exploded with cheers. Oikawa threaded his narrow frame through the gap between two burly docksman and flung himself into the line of people pressed against the cordons above the ring.

“Seijoh’s” back was to him, facing the announcer at the center of the ring. All Oikawa could see were broad shoulders under a sleeveless green tunic, and dark hair sticking up in sweat-slick spikes.

Then he turned, shooting a bright, wolfish grin up into the crowd, acknowledging the cheers, and Oikawa’s hands clenched on the ropes so tight that the coarse fibers bit into his palms.

“No _way.”_

Iwaizume Hajime - _Seijoh -_ refocused his wolf smile on Mad Dog, stepping forward to shake his hand.

“No _fucking_ way!” Oikawa yelled, and his voice disappeared into the swelling chant - _Seijoh! Seijoh! Seijoh!_

Oikawa was one of only a few dozen people close enough to see Mad Dog’s reaction when the wrestlers came face-to-face. His round eyes widened, and he snatched his hand back from Iwaizumi’s, snapping something at the referee.

He’d just noticed Iwaizumi’s eyes.

“ _The hell is this?”_ He snarled, just barely audible over the din. Iwaizumi’s calm reply _wasn’t_ audible, but Oikawa was close enough to read it off his lips.

_You’re about to find out, kiddo._

And no kid who fancied himself some Vinetown tough case would back down from a challenge like that.

 _An earthbender,_ Oikawa thought, watching Iwaizumi intently as the wrestlers took their places. _A_ blind _earthbender..._ but _was_ he blind? When he shook Mad Dog’s hand he reached straight for it, no feeling or flailing, and his head followed the referee and the announcer around the ring. He was clearly _aware_ of his surroundings, somehow, even if he couldn’t see them…

The ready whistle blew, a sharp blast through the noise, and Iwaizumi dug his bare feet into the packed earth floor, sinking into a crouch. His whole face came alive when he smiled, made him a completely different person than the silent, emotionless noble boy with metalwork feathers in his hair and his fighter’s build hidden under a thick brocade robe. He bounced on the balls of his feet, poised and ready, everything in his tight-wound posture focused on Mad Dog across the ring.

The bell rang, and Mad Dog moved first, feinting left and slamming his foot down in a move that sent a deep crack racing across the ground towards Iwaizumi’s feet. Iwaizumi sidestepped it neatly, his focus never leaving his opponent, and settled back into his crouch. _Toying_ with him, Oikawa realized, grinning in spite of himself. What a delightfully nasty thing to do to a kid with all that pent up aggression.

Mad Dog slammed out three more fissures, deeper and faster, and Iwaizumi dodged them all without breaking a sweat. A quick back-and-forth, a few flying rocks ducked or caught on shielding walls thrown up, and both fighters settled back into their corners. Oikawa watched with interest. The kid was young and rough around the edges, but he was quick as all hell, and his reaction times were just as fast. If Iwaizumi was an old school boulder-thrower, he’d have a hell of a time landing a hit.

But Iwaizumi’s casual dodging, and the ever-growing furor of a crowd who wanted to see rocks in the _air,_ was already having its intended effect. Mad Dog snarled and backed up, as far away as he could get without stepping past the all-important edge of the ring (Iwaizumi turned, tracking him as effortlessly as always), and slammed both feet down into the dust.

The crowd screamed its approval as a field of rocks sprang into the air all around him with an earthquake roar, and Mad Dog disappeared for an instant behind the cloud of flying earth and rock...and when he appeared again, he was in the _air._

Oikawa had never seen a move like it, and based on the explosion of noise all around him, neither had anyone else. The kid _jumped,_ easily five feet off the ground, into the center of the flying rocks. He curled back, put the entire force of his spine into the arm that whipped around and down, sending airborn rocks smashing to the ground like little meteors. The entire arena shook with the impacts, Iwaizumi stumbled, throwing his arms up over his head as he lost his footing in the hail of impacts.

Mad Dog hit the ground with a snarl and a twist of his foot that lifted a quarter of the arena _floor_ into the air. Iwaizumi swayed again, trying to ride out the impact. The crowd’s eyes were on Mad Dog and his giant projectile, but Oikawa didn’t look away from Iwaizumi. In the instant after Mad Dog landed, Iwaizumi found his footing again. He dropped into his solid crouch and balled his hands into fists, pulling them close to his chest. Mad Dog kicked, a vicious chest-level jab designed to send the slab of rock flying, Iwaizumi flung out his hands -

And there was a moment of absolute silence in the echoing pit as a thousand-pound stone stopped dead in the air.

Oikawa found himself yelling along with the rest of the crowd as the frozen boulder shattered in midair and rained down in a cloud of gravel. The barest shift in Iwaizumi’s stance and the rain of crushed rock coalesced under his feet, rearing up into a wave that raced across the ring and slammed Mad Dog clean off his feet, while he was still trying to figure out what happened to his boulder.

It must have felt like getting hit by a million gravel-sized trains.

Iwaizumi punched the air, his shout of victory completely swallowed up as the arena around him _exploded._ Mad Dog sat up, gray with gravel dust, and spat on the ground outside the boundary line, his face tight with fury.

Oikawa propped his elbows on the post in front of him and leaned his chin on his hands, grinning ear to ear.

“ _Iwaizume Hajime…”_

 

The underground arena thinned out considerably after the Seijoh/Mad Dog match. It was clearly going to take quite some time to put the arena floor back together, earthbending or no. Oikawa lingered, just long enough to spot the tunnel under the ring that the wrestlers disappeared into - Iwaizumi surrounded by a gaggle of young men his own age, ruffling his hair and clapping his shoulders, Mad Dog shoving away a few attendants who came to help him up and slinking off...just like a stray dog who’d lost a fight, Oikawa thought to himself. He hopped the cordon and weaved through the gaggle of people around the arena. A few glances flicked his way, but Oikawa just kept walking like he was meant to be there and knew exactly where he was going, and no one bothered to stop him.

After a few twists and turns (locker room, medic station, even some kind of cafeteria) the tunnel let out into another muddy Vinetown alley, close to the fish packing plant if the smell was any indicator. A gas lamp guttered in a bracket at one end of the alley, where it let out into a larger street, busy even at this time of night. Oikawa’s stomach growled at the scents wafting in from the food carts near the docks, hot and friend and heavy with salt and vinegar. But comfort food could wait. Just like him.

Oikawa poked around in the litter in the corners of the alley until he found a short length of driftwood, about the size of his palm, and slipped it into his pocket. He found some nice heavy shadows, away from the pool of lamplight, and settled in for a bit of lurking.

He didn’t have to wait long. After a few comings and goings from the wrestling arena’s stage door, a stocky figure slipped out into the alley alone. Wrapped up in a dark dock worker’s coat, he’d blend right into the thinning crowds out in the street, but there was no mistaking the spiky hair...or the way he moved, a sort of prowling grace, like he was aware of every muscle in his body.

“ _My son is a delicate boy,”_ Oikawa called out from the shadows, letting the grin on his face color his voice. “ _And the journey by boat is_ quite _intolerable--”_

Iwaizume Hajime froze mid-stride, and dropped his head forward with a heavy sigh.

“Oikawa Tooru,” he said, voice flat, not bothering to turn around. “My glider pilot.”

Oikawa grinned wider, stepping out into the relative light of the alleyway. He cast a quick glance up at the moon, dead overhead in the washed-out sky. “ _It’s three am,”_ he said sarcastically, “ _and do you know where your son is?”_ He leaned against the wall, picking at some non-existent dirt under a fingernail. “So, what’s the scam? Is she in on it, or is this all you?”

At that, Iwaizumi _did_ turn to face him, his expression hardening into a dangerous glare. “ _Excuse_ me?”

“You’re not _really_ blind, right? Don’t get me wrong, you had me sold up at the manor - the eyes are a great touch, what are they, lenses?”

Iwaizumi just stared impassively at him, his foggy eyes still blank. “Did you _want_ something, or can I go get dinner now?”

“I watched your whole match,” Oikawa said, tipping his head. That blank face was unnervingly hard to read. He slipped his hand into his pocket and curled his fingers around the lump of driftwood. “You need a servant girl to lead you around your mama’s mansion, but you can take that little Mad Dog punk apart without breaking a sweat? Gimme a break. I’m not threatening, or anything, “ _Yet,_ he added mentally,  “but I want the full story before I let you in my plane, Iwa-chan.” Iwaizumi made a face at the nickname. “What’s. The. Game?”

Halfway through the last sentence, he brought his hand out of his pocket and tossed the lump of driftwood at Iwaizumi - not hard, just an underhand arc aimed for his forehead. Iwaizumi’s head snapped towards the sudden movement of his arm...but he didn’t react to the driftwood at _all,_ not until it bounced lightly off his ear. He twisted away with a startled hiss, hands flying up into a defensive posture, eyes wide and just shy of frightened. The wood dropped harmlessly to the ground, and Oikawa let his arm fall back to his side.

“Well fuck me _sideways._ You really _can’t_ see, can you?”

Iwaizumi spun on him, his face murderous. “And what about _you,_ Oikawa Tooru? Do you really need that brace on your leg, or is it _just for show?”_

Oikawa’s stomach dropped.

He took an instinctive step back, too shocked to stop his hand from flying to the top of his knee brace where it closed around his thigh, hidden under his clothes. He was instantly, horribly aware of every point of contact with his skin, of the rattle of the joints as he moved and the faint, old ache re-awakened by the long walk down from the mountain.

“ _How?”_ He whispered, and Iwaizumi’s face twisted into an ugly, victorious smile.

“It rattles every time you move. I could hear it halfway down the hall back home. So what about it, huh? What’s the _game?_ How’s a _cripple_ fly a glider?”

“It doesn’t stop me flying!” Oikawa snapped back, aware of the petulant edge in his voice. “I’m the best damn pilot in the skies, knee brace or no _fucking_ knee brace. Your mother wouldn’t entrust her _delicate only son_ to anything less--” he broke off, suddenly, realization dawning. The way he leaned theatrically on Alisa’s arm, the way he’d waited for his mother to mention Oikawa before acknowledging him… “She doesn’t _know,_ does she? Your mother doesn’t have a clue what her little princeling Iwa-chan’s doing all night long. It’d just break her _heart,_ I bet--”

Iwaizumi’s handsome face hardened. Oikawa snapped his mouth shut, realizing with a sick clench in the pit of his stomach that he’d pushed this little war just one step too far.

“Well,” Iwaizumi said softly, voice as flat as his expression. “ _I’d_ bet everything I just won back there - which is more than you’d make in a year as a glorified taxi, believe me - that she doesn’t know you wear a knee brace. Or that you’re down here on the docks. Or,” he dug his hands into the pockets of his coat, and turned away up the alley, “that you talk like any other Vinetown kid when you think no one noble can hear you.”  He smirked faintly, but the venom had gone out of his voice, the hunch of his shoulders just looked tired...and maybe a little guilty. “Do what you want, best pilot in the skies. I can find another way to the air temple.”

“How do you do it?” Oikawa called after him, and was a little surprised when Iwaizumi actually paused, outlined under the golden lamp glow. “How the hell do you do it?”

“There’s more’n one way to see, Oikawa Tooru,” he said quietly, and turned away again.

Oikawa grumbled to himself, digging a toe into the deep alley mud. “ _More’n one way to see..._ mysterious little bastard.” Just another fucking rich kid slumming it in Vinetown with his nice warm feather bed to go back to, in a big safe house that didn’t smell like rotting fish, what the hell did he know? It was all just sightseeing – _heh—_ for him, right? He didn’t give a shit about any of these people, he just drank in their cheers and took their money and went home again, right. _Seijoh_ the wrestler, Gods above… This was a victory, right, call out his bullshit, noble princeling zero Vinetown brat one, stick it to the man, blah blah blah…

So why did he feel like such an asshole?

Oikawa caught the flash of movement out of the corner of his eye, but he was too busy with his spiral of self pity to call out in time. The heavy shape barreled past him with a snarl, distant lamplight catching on ragged blond hair--

Oikawa could only watch as Iwaizumi, silhouetted against the lamplight at the mouth of the alley, pivoted neatly away from Mad Dog’s charge. His toe traced an arch in the alley dust as he turned - he was still barefoot, despite the chilly night, and the thick, trash-strewn alley mud. A tap of his heel opened the arc into a fissure that swallowed Mad Dog’s foot to the ankle and sent him crashing to his knees.

The fissure snapped shut with a tremor that knocked Oikawa back against the wall. Mad Dog snarled, throwing his whole weight against his trapped leg like an animal in a snare. He snapped his head up, teeth bared and eyes blazing, and a long arm whipped out in a wild right hook, _reaching--_

“Give it a rest, Kyoutani,” Iwaizumi sighed, as he caught the punch against the flat of his palm. The force of the blow didn’t even rock him on his feet: he barely seemed to register it at all. Instead, Iwaizumi frowned. He knelt down to Kyoutani’s level, rotten, slimy mud clinging to his pants, and extended Kyoutani’s arm with surprising gentleness.

“This is sprained,” he said, fingers feeling carefully over the ugly, bruised swelling that enveloped Kyoutani’s wrist. “You came running out after me with an injury like this? Idiot.”

He let go of Kyoutani’s arm, digging into his pocket. The younger boy let his arm fall limp back to his side, staring up at Iwa. With the vicious anger gone from his face, he looked ten years younger, vulnerable and childlike. The deep crack in the ground released his foot with a soft rumble.

“Listen,” Iwaizumi said, pulling out a roll of elastic bandage and taking Kyoutani’s arm again. “You lost tonight, right? So what? You’ve got talent – you almost had me on my ass once already. You gotta put in the time losing every other match if you ever wanna be good. You’ll have a thousand other chances.” Kyoutani hissed as Iwaizumi rotated his wrist and looped the bandage over the crook of his thumb. “But not if you keep _this_ up. You can’t get yourself hurt taking stupid risks, and you can’t go looking for revenge after every hard loss, alright?” And it seemed to Oikawa that Iwaizumi paused then, and waited until Kyoutani looked up at him.

“The pain’s part of the game, sure,” Iwaizumi said softly. “But it’s not the _reason._ Don’t go looking for it.” He tucked in the end of the bandage, and set his hand on Kyoutani’s shoulder. “It gets better, okay? I know you don’t believe me now, but you’ll find other ways to let it out.” He paused for a long moment, tilting his head to one side. “You eaten today?”

Kyoutani dropped his eyes away like a guilty puppy, and shook his head.

“Thought so.” Iwaizumi got to his feet and leaned out into the main road. “Hoy! Mattsun! Makki!” He hauled Kyoutani up by the shoulder and pushed him out into the light. “Take this moron back to the medics, and get his wrist looked at, will ya? It looks like he’s got a grapefruit implanted under there. Oh, and get him a decent dinner, yeah?”  There was a jingle of coins changing hands.

“You want us to buy him a _meal_ or a _restaurant,_ Iwa?” one of the newcomers drawled. Iwaizumi just fixed him with that unnerving sightless stare, the one that seemed to take in far more than his clouded eyes ever could. “I’m _kidding,_ no need for The Face.” Mattsun chuckled and threw an arm around Kyoutani’s shoulder. He flinched away, face snapping into a snarl that died in his throat the second Iwaizumi’s head turned his way. He dropped his head again, shuffling awkwardly under the weight of Mattsun’s arm as they dragged him up the street.

“And you heard me say _dinner,_ right?” Iwaizumi yelled after them. “ _Food!_ The kind you _chew._ With your _teeth!”_

 _“Yes,_ mother.”

“ _No booze_ with my money, you ingrates!”

Iwaizumi stood under the streetlight a moment longer, hands in his pockets, head tilting as he traced their progress up the street. He shook his head with a soft laugh and turned away, in the opposite direction, disappearing from the pool of light alone.

He didn’t spare another second for Oikawa, still standing frozen in the dark shadows of the dockside alley.


	2. Stopovers

Iwaizumi made the long walk back up the mountain in an unusually introspective mood, munching on a greasy paper bag full of fish fingers as he climbed.

This night had _not_ gone as expected. And tomorrow...tomorrow he was leaving. Less than eight hours away, and he still didn’t know how he felt about that.

Just below the high walls surrounding the Iwaizumi estate, he ducked off the winding road and picked his way through the rocky scrub on autopilot, still lost in thought.

_Do what you want, Oikawa Tooru…_

Logic dictated that he should be ravenous after his match tonight, but the hot fish sat in his stomach like a lead weight. Iwaizumi sighed and carefully wrapped up the rest of his meal, stowing it away in a pocket. Maybe Lev would want it…

Close to the base of the wall, he paused and tried to focus his wandering thoughts, digging his toes into the cool earth. The tunnels tended to move a little every night, but somewhere...around...here…

The earth at the base of the wall mounded up, and Iwaizumi smiled as a triangular, striped head pushed out of the ground.

“Hey, little sister.”

The badgermole snuffled suspiciously, heavy claws poised for a quick retreat. Iwaizumi knelt to her level, presenting his face for a thorough sniffing. She was a little one (her head was only about the size of his torso) probably not long out of the colony’s deep nursery chamber, with spots of baby fluff still clinging to her thick striped coat. Iwaizumi waited patiently as she checked him out, drumming her foreclaws on the ground to get a sense of how big he was. He chuckled when her blunt black nose zeroed in on his pockets with a string of excited snuffles.

“Caught me, didn’t you? Smart girl.” Iwaizumi fished out his other dockside purchase of the night: a pound of Seijoh’s finest nightcrawlers.

He left the little badgermole happily slurping her worms and slithered through the wide burrow under the wall. It wasn’t the easy crawl it had been when he was sixteen...but still infinitely preferable to climbing the gate like Lev and Alisa did, bounding up those thin bars without a second thought. Iwaizumi shuddered, shaking the mud out of his hair. He’d take the tight, smelly badgermole tunnels over taking his feet off the ground to climb the gate any day.

And speaking of keeping his feet on the ground…

As soon as his feet were solidly planted again, all his senses screamed _movement_ at him. Iwaizumi froze in the shelter of the wall, senses trained on the spot of movement, near that goddamned glider. Tall, slim, light-footed...Iwaizumi relaxed, and stepped out into the broad, open lawn.

“Couldn’t find any more trouble?”

Oikawa started, spinning around. “The hell did _you_ come from? Over the wall?”

“Under it,” Iwaizumi said, straight faced.

Oikawa stared for a long moment, and then huffed. “Right. Earthbender.”

“Yup.” Iwaizumi smirked. The silence stretched, tense and thick, and Iwaizumi had to fight the instinct to shift into a fighter’s crouch. He found he was feeling something he wouldn’t have believed possible, not too many years ago: he was sick of fighting. “Wasn’t expecting to run into you back here. I thought you’d’ve found some nice girl to spend the night with.”

Okay, _mostly_ sick of fighting.

Oikawa just laughed softly at the barb, and a little of the tension drained from the air. Oikawa had a lot of different smiles and a lot of different laughs, and he seemed to switch them out as easily as changing clothes…but Iwaizumi thought that just _maybe_ this one sounded sincere.

 “Ah, well. “ Oikawa ran his hand lovingly along one of the glider’s wings, like a parent touching his child’s hair. “I’ve always got _this_ girl to come home to.”

Iwaizumi couldn’t hide his shudder of distaste. He knew the glider was big, logically, but in his senses the lightweight thing was barely there: just a delicate wood and metal skeleton, covered in stretched canvas he could barely sense at all.

He was aware of Oikawa watching him. “You’re afraid of flying aren’t you?” He asked softly, almost gently. “You don’t even jump when you’re bending.”

Iwaizumi huffed. “You’re damned observant, aren’t you, Oikawa Tooru?”

Oikawa tensed, taking a short step back at the snap in Iwaizumi’s voice. His eyes narrowed, but for the second time that night, he ignored the chance to rise to the bait.

“The only time that Mad Dog kid came _close_ to getting a drop on you was when him _and_ all his rocks were off the ground.” Oikawa said with a shrug. He seemed to be attempting to skirt the driftwood-throwing incident. “It was...” Oikawa shuffled his feet awkwardly. "It was sweet, what you did for him, by the way."

“Saw that, did you?” Iwaizumi shuffled himself, digging his hands deeper into his pockets

 “I did. I…I don’t think many other people would’ve bothered.”

“Yeah, well...” Iwaizumi shrugged. He could feel the heat of an embarrassed blush on his cheeks, and hoped to hell Oikawa couldn’t see it in the dark. “That kid’s wasted on wrestling anyway. Did you _see_ those kicks? He’ll make a hell of a pro bender once he learns how to play with other children.”

“You never wanted to try pro bending?” Oikawa asked, trying to make conversation. “Better fights, better money, less…getting-raided-by-cops…”

“Things flying through the air, remember?”

“Er. Right.” Oikawa rubbed at the back of his neck. “It has something to do with your feet, doesn’t it?”

“My... _what?”_

“How you...you ‘see.’ You’re still barefoot, you don’t like your feet being off the ground…”

Iwaizumi blinked, a little impressed despite himself. “ _Really_ damned observant.” Silence fell again, but this time it was just awkward. Iwaizumi thought he preferred are-we-about-to-fight tension. How did normal people make conversation anyway?

“Ah, well,” Oikawa said brightly, seeming to sense Iwaizumi’s discomfort. “You’re not alone, gliders freak lots of people out. Everyone thinks bison are safer.”

“It’s a lot harder to crash a bison into a cliff,” Iwaizumi muttered. Oikawa giggled.

“Yeah, but you can’t really trust their choice of landing sites. I once saw a bison plant all six paws on the tip of an Air Temple spire eight hundred feet off the ground, and just sit there looking proud of herself while everyone on her back had a heart attack.”

Iwaizumi huffed a soft laugh, and felt Oikawa smile again.

“You haven’t gotten a close look--uh. Feel? Whatever. At the glider. Have you?” Oikawa asked, his voice lighting up with enthusiasm. “I’ll give you a tour! C’mon--” he bounced over, all eagerness, and reached out to catch Iwaizumi’s arm.

The second his fingers touched Iwaizumi’s skin, an explosive snarl erupted from the base of the wall behind them. Oikawa dropped his arm and hopped back with a squeal, and Iwaizumi turned to grin at the badgermole nose poking out from under the wall. This was a newcomer, an adult male…and easily five times the size of his fluffy little sentry friend.

“Hi,” Iwaizumi said. The big creature snuffled suspiciously, testing the air.  “Don’t worry, he’s not gonna hurt me.”

“Friend of yours?” Oikawa said weakly.

“You could say that.” Iwaizumi chuckled, patting his pockets. “Sorry bro, I’m out of worms tonight.”

The badgermole rumbled another growl in Oikawa’s direction. The pilot squeaked, backing up against his plane.

“He wants to smell you,” Iwaizumi explained.  

“ _Smell_ me?”

“Well yeah, you’re the one standing by _his_ back door smelling all foreign. Be polite.”

Oikawa just stared. Iwaizumi rolled his eyes and hauled him over by the arm. “Come _on,_ he won’t bite. Well. He _might,_ but it’s not like they have teeth.”

Oikawa knelt down hesitantly, wincing claws the size of his forearms drummed on either side of his legs. “Ojamashimasu, mole-sama?”

Iwaizumi snorted. “I don’t think your average badgermole is that impressed with formality.”

“I’m covering my bases,” Oikawa said through gritted teeth, as the snuffling moved down his chest. “Is this how they _see?”_

“Above ground, yeah.” Iwaizumi said. “Below ground they mostly feel the vibrations around them. They’ve got their own form of bending too, like the flying bison make their own air currents. There’s no way something that size could make tunnels that don’t collapse without it. Earthbending’s mostly a sixth sense to them.”

“ _Fascinating,”_ Oikawa said in a strained voice. The badgermole’s investigations had reached some rather private areas. “Wait.” His head snapped around. The badgermole gave him an offended look. “ _Wait._ That’s how _you_ do it, isn’t it? Vibrations! You can feel vibrations, through your feet! But anything in the air…” There was genuine excitement in his voice at his discovery, and it took the edge off that smug, smirking personality Iwaizumi had been so tempted to grind into the dirt back in Vinetown.

“Pretty good, flyboy.” Iwaizumi knelt next to the big badgermole and scratched behind the small, round ears. “What do you think, friend? Can he stay?”

The badgermole gave Oikawa one more long, suspicious sniff, and then tapped his claws decisively and vanished down his tunnel in a shower of dirt.

“...interesting company you keep,” Oikawa said, shaking dirt out of his hair.

“I think as far as they’re concerned I’m a runty, weird smelling badgermole.” Iwaizumi laughed fondly. “At least they don’t try to feed me grubs anymore.”

“There’s _more_ of those things?”

“Oh yeah. A whole colony, they’ve been here for centuries. Way longer than humans.  I think their burrows run under most of the mountain...I wandered down there once, when I was little.  I was running away from home…must’ve walked for _miles_ before a couple of them found me.”

Oikawa sat back on his heels, his eyes wide. “What’d they _do?”_

“Nuzzled me until I stopped crying, and then lead me back out the way I came in. They knew I was no threat. I found my way to bending, learning from them. The way they moved, the way they’d stop to feel, and listen, always in the dark, just like me…” Huddling back against a crumbling wall at the sounds of _movement,_ something huge creeping up on him, no way out and nowhere else to run…and then the big warm heads, bumping gently against his hands and nudging away the tears on his cheeks. Tripping and falling as he ran after his rescuers, the moment when his bare hands pressed flat against the earth beneath him and a whole new world opened up inside his mind…

Iwaizumi bit his lip and hesitated for a long moment. “Y-you were right, by the way. My mother has no idea...it’d kill her if she knew I was into something that risky.”

Oikawa shut his eyes, shoulders slumping with a shaky sigh. “I’m _sorry,”_ he whispered. “I’m _really_ sorry, Iwaizumi-san. I never...I was _so_ out of line back there, I had no right to bring her into that.”

Iwaizumi snorted. “Oh, are we back to - _san_ now? Isn’t you _standing_ around me out of line according to all that noble-servant bullshit?”

“It was out of line according to being a decent _person,”_ Oikawa said, looking away.

Iwaizumi sighed deeply, pulling his knees up against his chest. “I’ve gotta tell her someday, I know I do, but…not now, not right before I leave. It’s already taken so much out of her to let me go study at the air temple in the first place…” He raised his head, trying to focus on Oikawa’s face. “You won’t say anything, right?”

“Of _course_ not.” Oikawa shook his head vigorously. “It’s not my place. _Not_ as a noble-servant thing,” he added hurriedly, raising both hands as Iwaizumi glared. “That’s your bridge to cross, not mine.” He hesitated a moment, and then spoke slowly, obviously choosing his words. “This might be out of line too, but...you don’t think it might be a weight off her mind, knowing you’re a bender? I mean…” his grin crept back onto his face. “You’re not exactly what I’d call _delicate.”_

Iwaizumi grimaced. “She’s...she’s just _protective._ She’s not from here, not originally…she’s from a little Fire Nation island, up by the North Pole. Another old noble family. Trained at the school at Kiyoshi for a while, but she dropped everything to marry my dad and move out here...left everything behind. She was twenty...he died a year later. About a month before I was born.” He paused, waiting for the usual awkward, murmured platitudes...but Oikawa just listened, head tilted to one side.  “Everyone thinks it was a...an arranged thing, a marriage of convenience, but it _wasn’t,”_ Iwaizumi said, words coming out in a heated rush. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d talked this much to someone.  “She loved him. C _razy_ loved him. But he died in an accident down in Vinetown, and then I was born...you know…” he tapped a finger beneath his eye. “I can’t fault her for wanting me wrapped up in cotton wool up here. Everyone tells me I look like him...”  _Not that I'd know one way or another..._

Oikawa propped his elbows on his knees and pressed both hands over his face. “I,” he announced into his palms. “Am the biggest asshole. On this earth.”

Iwaizumi snorted again. “I don’t know. I kind of _prefer_ asshole you to all that - _san -sama I am not worthy_ stuff. And uh...as far as that goes…” he cleared his throat loudly, getting back to his feet and wincing as his sore muscles protested. “I’m sorry too. For calling you what I did.”

Oikawa tilted his head, fingers brushing over the top of his knee brace again. “Don’t apologize, I threw a piece of driftwood at your _head.”_

Iwaizumi shook his head. “Still no reason...so what if I’m scared shitless about riding in that thing, I can’t take it out on _you.”_

Oikawa got up slowly, running his fingers through his hair. He seemed to be thinking hard about what to say. “It’s...it’s not just for show, y’know,” he said softly. “I don’t just say I’m the best to brag. I’ve got more than two thousand hours in the air, and I got my start flying storm-skipper runs into the poles during storm season. I really _am_ one of the best, and that means you’re _safe_ with me. And my girl.” He touched the wing of his plane again, pride thrumming in his voice. “She’s seen me through a dozen winter storms. She’ll still fly with half a propeller and two inches of ice on her wings.”

Iwaizumi cringed. “Please tell me you’re not speaking from experience.”

“Er...yeah, okay, bad example. But still...I know they look flimsy, but these things are built tough. Here, feel.” He caught Iwaizumi’s hand, and pressed it to the back edge of the wing, against one of the thin metal struts that supported it. “Feel that? They call it spider-cable, the same stuff the metalbender police use. You could lift a tank with it. There’s eighteen struts in each wing, and it only needs about six to stay sturdy. The skins are layered too, feel how the seams overlap?”

Foot by foot, Oikawa walked Iwaizumi’s fingers over the entire glider, nose to tail, explaining every seam, every rivet and support in her construction. Most of it went over his head, especially when Oikawa hauled one of the big lightning-charged batteries out of a slot under the cockpit and started explaining how the free-spinning propellers recharged them when the plane was gliding...but his boundless enthusiasm for every inch of his glider made it all easy to listen to. With all those calculated layers of smugness or formality stripped away...there was something almost _annoyingly_ endearing about him. It was like watching a puppy play. An extremely intelligent, articulate puppy with a detailed knowledge of aeronautical engineering…

“This is why you hide your knee, isn’t it?” Iwaizumi asked. Oikawa froze solid, and then yelped as he dropped the heavy battery on his foot.

“ _Mother of owwww_ sorry, what?”

“It’s not just a pride thing.” Iwaizumi tilted his head, listening to the faint rattle of the metal brace under Oikawa’s clothes as he moved. “You don’t want your passengers wondering about how you got hurt, or if it affects how you fly...you don’t want them to be scared.”

Oikawa was silent for a long moment, sliding the battery back into its slot and locking it in place. “Pretty observant yourself, Iwaizumi Hajime.”

Iwaizumi’s hands went back into his pockets, and he kicked at the leaf litter underfoot. “Wipe that smirk off your face,” he grumbled, unable to stifle his own smile.

Oikawa cocked his head. “You can...see expressions? You know what I look like?”

Iwaizumi shrugged. “In general. If your face is moving, especially. I get...shapes.”

Oikawa propped an elbow on the edge of the cockpit, leaning towards Iwaizumi in a way that made the few inches of height between them annoyingly obvious. “So what do I look like to you, Iwa-chan?”

“Hmff. Tall, gangly...broad shoulders though. Big eyes.” Iwaizumi grinned. “Giraffe neck.”

“ _Mean!”_

“But I am forced to admit, I don’t have the faintest _clue_ what your hair is doing.” Iwaizumi sighed, scraping a hand through his own bristly spikes.

“My hair,” Oikawa grumbled, “Does whatever the _hell_ it feels like unless I beat it into submission. You should see it after three days of flying. You’re lucky you look so good with short hair, Iwa-chan.”

“Can I...can I feel your hair?” Iwaizumi asked. _Look so good with short hair…?_ He shrugged helplessly when Oikawa raised his eyebrows. “Seriously, it’s been driving me crazy for hours. I can’t get a fix on it at _all.”_

Oikawa giggled. “Sure.” He tugged his goggles out of his hair and leaned forward slightly, dipping his head. 

“The leaning down so I can reach is just condescending,” Iwaizumi grumbled, bringing his fingertips gingerly to Oikawa’s scalp. “Wow.” He trailed his fingers up through seemingly endless feathery tufts, trying his best not to pull anywhere. “ _Soft…” Shit, did I say that out loud?_

He winced, tugging his hands away and bracing for the inevitable snark...but Oikawa didn’t say anything, not immediately. In fact, it might have been Iwaizumi’s imagination, but he thought Oikawa leaned forward a little more, chasing his hands as he pulled away.

“I-Iwa-chan has n-nice hands,” he said, slipping back into his simpering, formal accent.

Iwaizumi glared and poked his cheek. “You had better not be smirking at me again, Oikawa Tooru.” Oikawa laughed and held up his hands.

“No smirk, I promise. Feel all you want.”

Iwaizumi huffed suspiciously, but since Oikawa didn’t seem to be pulling away, he took the opportunity offered. If he was stuck in that tiny glider with him for three days, he might as well get a fix on his appearance.

“Hm. I knew it. Your eyes are _ridiculous,_ you know that?”

“I bet you say that to all the girls,” Oikawa said, voice slightly muffled.

_Girls. Right._

“Do _I_ get to poke at _your_ face after this?”

“Do I get to throw rocks at you?”

“Hey, you can _walk_ to the Air Temple, Iwa-chan.”

“Wait.” Iwaizumi dropped his hands and glared. “Aren’t we leaving at first light tomorrow? Why the hell are you still awake? I’m putting my _life_ in your hands, you pompous little fluffball.”

“Remind me to introduce you to airbender coffee tomorrow,” Oikawa said with a grin. Then his smile softened. “It’s just a short hop, especially if we catch the tide wind,” he said, more seriously. “I’ll get enough sleep. If I don’t sleep, we don’t fly, I promise. But we _should_ go to bed…”

“R-right.” Iwaizumi stepped back, suddenly tongue tied and aware that he was a little hoarse. How long had it been since he’d talked this much in one night? Or a day...or a _week,_ for that matter. _I told him about the badgermoles...I told him about_ mom…

And it had seemed like the most natural thing in the world.

“F-first light?” He stuttered. Oikawa smiled that soft smile.

“First light.” Then he dropped a hand on Iwaizumi’s head and ruffled his hair vigorously.

“ _Hoy!”_

“Fair’s fair. I wanna mess up your hair too.”

“Do what you want, Oikawa Tooru,” Iwaizumi said, laughing.

* * *

 

“I swear by every god and spirit in this world, Iwa-chan,” Oikawa said over the rushing wind, “you _won’t_ fall out of the plane if you relax your grip a little.”

“ _I’m covering my bases,”_ Iwaizumi grunted, not relaxing his grip on the edges of the cockpit in the slightest. Oikawa’s answering snort was whisked away but the wind.

Iwaizumi held on tighter, if that was possible, and tried to think about breathing.

Lev had gotten to go up on an air bison flight a few years ago, escorting some kind of delivery back from the mainland. He hadn’t shut up about it for _weeks_ afterwards: how _big_ the world got, thousands of feet above the ocean how it dropped away into a glittering panorama from horizon to horizon, how you could see all the way to the point where the sea fell away around the curve of the world.

Iwaizumi’s world had ceased to exist. This was a million times worse than being lost underground as a child. His world was what he could feel, and what he could feel was the shaking rocking skeleton of the glider, suspended in roaring nothingness. At least the endless warrens of badgermole tunnels had been _solid._ At least that had been _somewhere,_ not this howling, vibrating _nowhere_ way above the world. Even the lean, solid glider skeleton that Oikawa had walked his fingers over last night was gone, constantly shaken by the wind into a million vibrating, overlapping shapes in his head. Trying to focus on it, find anything solid in that jumbled mess, made his temples squeeze and his stomach churn. True to his word, Oikawa had started their morning off by offering Iwaizumi a cup of thick, syrup-sweet coffee drawn out of some hissing, clicking little contraption set up on the nose of the glider. In the sleepy predawn chill it had been the nectars of the spirit realm, but now it sat in his stomach like a ball of hornets, adding a sick, unpleasant buzz to the adrenaline firing through his veins and--

And a _thump_ sliced into Iwaizumi’s whirling thoughts, one that he felt as much as heard through the palms of his hands...and then a second _thump_ on the other side of the glider, then two more, _three_ more--

“O-oikawa,” Iwaizumi croaked. He swallowed hard and tried again, hissing over the wind. “ _Oikawa. There’s something on the wing.”_

“Hm?” In the pilot’s seat directly in front of Iwaizumi’s Oikawa turned his head, and then yelped loud enough to make Iwaizumi wince. “ _Hey!_ You fuzzy freeloaders! We’re not even going in the same direction!”

One of the _things_ on the wing moved, with a skittering of _too many_ tiny feet, and Iwaizumi very slowly withdrew his hand, terrified to startle it. “What are they?”

“Huh? Oh, don’t worry.” Oikawa chuckled as he turned his head far enough to get a glimpse of Iwaizumi’s frozen face. “Just hawkmoths.”

“ _Hawkmoths.”_

“Yeah, they’re everywhere this time of year. We must be crossing a migration route. Heh, hey Iwa, I think they like you! You must smell like a flower.”

Iwaizumi sat very still as prickly, insectile forelegs touched his hand. With a solid point of contact, he could tell that the hawkmoth wasn’t too different from the fluttery creatures that buzzed around lamp posts in the summer. Just...bigger. A _lot_ bigger.

“Is it...going to _do_ anything?” he asked, leaning back as feathery antennae as long as his hand waved curiously in his face.

“Not unless you need pollinating,” Oikawa said absently. He kicked one of the pedals under his feet, and something went _clunk_ deep in the belly of the glider. His mind was clearly elsewhere, and Iwaizumi decided to stop distracting the pilot and just deal quietly with the big bug sitting on his arm.

The hawkmoths came and went over the next few hours, perching on the glider (and occasionally on Iwaizumi and Oikawa) to rest their tired wings, until the _Furudate_ moved too far off their migration route and they took to the air again.

Once the shock of encountering moths as long as his forearm wore off, Iwaizumi found he didn’t mind the creatures. Their big triangular bodies and their comings and goings were something solid to focus his mind on amongst all the shaking and rushing air. He even got used to the occasional moth climbing up his arm to smell (taste? feel?) his face with their long antennae.

But eventually, the glider moved further south, out of the hawkmoths’ migration route, and Iwaizumi was once again alone with his thoughts in this tiny, shaking pocket of space. Casting around for something else to focus on as the last hawkmoth fluttered off the wing, he lit on the only other solid thing in the glider: Oikawa.

It felt a little...odd, rude, maybe, to focus all his senses on someone who was, after all, he’d only met the day before. He vaguely remembered Alisa chiding a much younger Lev, telling him not to stare at strangers...Iwaizumi winced and pulled away from that train of thought. Saying goodbye to Lev and Alisa in the early hours of the morning, Lev hiding in his shoulder as they hugged and pretending he wasn’t crying, had added a brand new category of painful to Iwaizumi’s experience.

He leaned forward a bit and pressed his hands flat against the back of Oikawa’s seat in front of him, spreading his fingers across the wind-worn leather and _focusing,_ trying to bring all his senses to bear on Oikawa’s solid, steady form.

He squeezed his eyes shut, an automatic reflex, and _concentrated._

Maybe the wind and the shaking had died down, or maybe he was just adjusting, but it was easier to get a fix on the shapes and sounds around him. He could even pick out Oikawa’s heartbeat through the back of his seat, warm and steady, and somehow reassuring. _If he’s not worried I shouldn’t be either…_ the glider bumped and Iwaizumi swallowed heavily as his stomach churned, but Oikawa’s heart beat stayed steady as ever. He just shifted slightly, nudging a pedal and tugging the yoke, and the glider evened out again. _If he’s not worried I shouldn’t be, if he’s not worried I shouldn’t be…_

“Uh…you okay back there?” Oikawa said, glancing over his shoulder, jarring Iwaizumi’s focus.

“ _Concentrating.”_

_“_ Kay…what on?”

“Uh…” Iwaizumi shrugged inwardly. “You.” Oikawa’s heartbeat did some sort of complicated fluttery thing, and the glider dropped a foot. _“What’s wrong?”_

“Oh fine, _fine!”_ Oikawa squeaked, kicking a pedal with another _clonk._ “Wh-why are you concentrating on me?”

“Er…you’re there, mostly.”

“I uh…I don’t really understand but…good work?” Oikawa said, over another series of rattles and clunks. “We’re coming up on our stopover for the night, so I’m getting ready to land, okay? Might get a bit bumpy…”

Two minutes later, Iwaizumi didn’t have the presence of mind to concentrate on anything but not losing his lunch all over the back of Oikawa’s fluffy head…if that was possible when it felt like his stomach was still a hundred feet above them. The straps of his safety harness dug into his shoulders and hips as the _Furudate_ dropped through air growing rapidly warmer and wetter. Then came the bone-rattling _thump_ and the feeling of a giant hand pressing him back in his seat as Oikawa hauled the break levers, bringing them to a jolting halt with a crunch of sand under wheels.

Iwaizumi slapped at the harness buckles Oikawa had shown him that morning, threw the straps off and tumbled gracelessly out of the glider while Oikawa was still unbuckling his own harness. He sent his boots flying in two different directions and sunk his toes into fine, warm sand, letting out a deep sigh of contentment as the world came flooding back.

By the time Oikawa finished his walk-around and locked the glider’s wheels in place, Iwaizumi was sitting on the little strip of beach with his legs splayed out in front of him and his fingers buried in the sand, absolutely radiating contentment. Oikawa chuckled.

“ _You_ look happy.”

“I would _kiss_ the ground if I didn’t hear seagulls over there.”

“Yeah, uh…” Oikawa shoved his goggles into his hair and scanned the strip of beach, and the flocks of (well fed) birds coming in to roost for the night. “You’re taking a risk going barefoot too.”

Iwaizumi wrinkled his nose, but he didn’t bother putting his boots back on as he got to his feet. “I’ve stepped in worse.”

“Ah, _Vinetown,”_ Oikawa said fondly. He opened one of the many compartments in the _Furudate’s_ belly and pulled out his pack and Iwaizumi’s, slinging them both over one shoulder. “C’mon, I’ll show you where we’re staying. Probably nothing compared to what you’re used to, but the food’s good.”

“This is an island, isn’t it?” Iwaizumi asked. The vibrations of their footsteps radiated through the earth underfoot and back up his legs, sketching him a picture of a low-lying hill poking its rounded crest up out of the ocean. Oikawa looked impressed.

“That’s pretty cool, y’know, Iwa-chan?” He said leading the way up the hill to a salt-stained wood building. “Yeah, we’re right at the tip of the original Fire Nation archipelago. Used to be a fishing port, but now it’s mostly a stopover between the Air Temple and Republic City. If it wasn’t so close to storm season there’d be bison everywhere…” he sounded a little wistful when he said that.

“Hey, yeah, you’re an Air Temple kid, aren’t you? Why fly a glider instead of joining one of the bison crews?”

“Because _some_ of us Air Temple kids,” Oikawa said shortly, “happen to be wildly allergic to bison hair. Watch your head—“

He pushed open a heavy wood door. Iwaizumi had to pause in the doorway, letting his senses adjust to the new area, busy with people and overlapping voices.  Oikawa bounced over to a young woman behind some kind of bar and Iwaizumi followed more cautiously, letting his head adjust.

“Hey, Deb. Room for one tonight, name’s Hajime.”

“Room for one?” Iwa asked, catching up to him by the bar. Oikawa wrinkled his nose, twirling around to survey the busy room with his elbows propped on the bar behind him.

“Flight prices pay for _you_. I...uh...make my own arrangements.”

“Where?” Iwa frowned. “You don’t have a room.”

“I count about six possibilities,” Oikawa grinned.

“Why six?”

“Six pretty girls tonight! Oooh, pretty boys too, make than nine possibilities…” he tugged at his cowlick, adjusting for maximum effortlessly windblown effect.

“Are you _sure_ you don’t have children of your own?” Iwaizumi teased.

“ _Hey,_ I’m careful!” Oikawa pouted. Iwaizumi just laughed and shook his head, feeling his way onto a nearby bar stool. Oikawa flopped down next to him. “I’m starving, how ‘bout you?”

“Blug…”

“Oooh, still airsick, huh?”

“I’m not sure what’s airsick and what’s that damn coffee of yours,” Iwaizumi grumbled.

“Heh. Well, get some tea or something.” Oikawa hesitated, and lowered his voice a notch. “You okay on your own? I know it’s been an...overwhelming day.”

Iwaizumi smiled at him. He should probably be annoyed, but there was something sweet about Oikawa’s concern.

“I’m good, Tooru. Go land yourself a girl.”

Oikawa’s expression flickered in a soft, odd way Iwaizumi couldn’t put an emotion to, long lashes fluttering and his breath pausing for an instant. “Right,” he said softly, and then his _I’m so pretty_ grin was back in place. “Catch ya later, Iwa-chan!”

He hopped off his stool and adjusted his goggles. Iwaizumi reached over, without bothering to turn his head, and messed up his hair again.

“ _Hey! Iwaaaaa!”_

“Have fun,” Iwa grinned, and Oikawa flipped him an extremely descriptive Vinetown gesture and vanished into the chaos.

Iwaizumi leaned his chin on a hand, fingers automatically reaching up to fidget with the feather ornaments behind his ears...before he remembered taking them off that morning. His head suddenly felt too light without their edges pricking against his skin, and his already uneasy stomach twisted with a sudden, painful tug of homesickness. He tried to turn his thoughts away from home again, and they drifted, inevitably, back to Oikawa. He couldn’t stop himself replaying that odd, soft expression in his head, wondering what had caused the pretty pilot’s face to move like that.

It was another hour before he realized that he’d never called Oikawa by his first name before.

 


	3. Wave

Around the time the clock above the bar chimed seven, Iwaizumi decided that he’d had enough of people watching. The noisy chaos of the busy common room was tipping from interesting and new from loud and overwhelming, and he hadn’t caught Oikawa’s distinctive, sparkling laugh in most of an hour. He’d probably found his pretty girl (or boy) to spend the night with.

He let Deb lead him down a hall that felt narrow and winding as a badgermole tunnel and unlock one of a dozen solid-feeling wooden doors. He thanked her and felt his way curiously around the small room. Low, creaky bed, tiny bathroom behind a wooden partition, a bookshelf with a scattering of paperbacks and thick privacy curtains on a small window...all normal enough, but somehow, weirdly unfamiliar. Nowhere near the Iwaizumi estate, true enough, but far nicer than his only other basis of comparison, around the Vinetown docks. He’d spent his entire life bouncing between two extremes, Iwaizumi realized. And feeling like an outsider in both…

Iwaizumi groaned at himself and shook his head, dragging his thoughts back to reality. He knelt, and, after a moment’s pause, he felt through the outer pockets of his pack until his fingers touched filigreed metal.

His feather ornaments, symbol of the Iwaizumi house marking him as the eldest son and heir. Bane of his life since his thirteenth birthday, when his mother’s handmaiden used a heated needle to punch two holes in the rims of his ears. Heavy, scratchy, always snagging and pulling and bouncing against his cheeks…

 _“You’re the noble son of a noble household Hajime,”_ his mother had told him, in the predawn chill before the glider lifted off. _“You should wear it with pride, no matter where life takes you. They’re a reminder of where you come from. Where you belong.”_

She’d tugged gently on his feathers, and hugged him tight. “ _Don’t forget where home is. And find someone to write me a letter when you land.”_

 _“I’ll write you a letter myself, Mama,”_ he’d said, voice wavering. Behind them, Oikawa suddenly sounded _very_ involved with something in the belly of the glider.

And then he’d gleefully snatched his feathers off and tossed them in his pack the second the glider coasted out of sight.

Iwaizumi bit his lip, and slipped the ornaments back onto his ears. Their familiar weight settled against his skin, two spots of prickly cold until his body heat warmed the delicate metal.

 _Sorry, Mama,_ he thought, and tugged them gently.

Iwaizumi lay back on the creaky bed, head buzzing with unfamiliar surroundings and homesickness, knowing he wasn’t going to sleep. The thick timber walls blocked most of the noise, but he felt the building thrumming around him, alive with movement and voice. If he focused on the vibrations moving through the timbers, he could almost convince himself the inn was just a bigger, slower version of Oikawa’s glider, drifting unmoored through open space…

The ocean wind filtered through cracks in the rattling window, heavy with salt and unfamiliar flowers and the tang of seagull dung. He just listened for a while, floating on the sounds of wind and waves, the rhythmic thud of footsteps and the patter of voices almost indistinguishable from the washing rise and fall of the waves.

It only worked for so long, until the din of his own thoughts threatened to overwhelm the sketch of sound around him. Nerves twanging from too much stillness, Iwaizumi dug out his battered old “don’t notice me” coat and shrugged it on. He left his boots behind, and slipped out through the common room.

He’d heard of beaches, but never stood on one before. Rocky Seijoh just dropped straight off in cliffs, or into the deep, sheltered harbor down in Vinetown. This soft, sandy expanse felt alien to a hard-rock boy, like it was all about to sink into the sea without Seijoh’s volcanic bones to hold it steady.

Iwaizumi explored among the boats tied up on limpet-crusted mooring posts: slim lacquer sailboats and squat, steel-hulled long haul fishers half beached by the receding tide. The big metal steamboats smelled like _industry,_ coal and oil and thick metallic smoke that coated his tongue and throat with a bloody-tasting film.

With a little more of the rotting-jungle smell of a thousand tons of climbing vines, it would’ve smelled like Seijoh.

It would’ve smelled like _home._

He’d never realized that home _had_ a smell before, just like he’d never realized there were meanings of _goodbye_ that weren’t _I’ll see you again tomorrow._ Not until the _almost_ familiar scent hit his nose and opened up the ugly, aching pit in his stomach once again.

His aimless wandering took him back up the gentle slope of the beach, the occasional sharp edges of shells scraping his calloused feet. His internal map, drawn in the verb and reverb through the soft sandy bones of the island, told him he’d worked his way around the curve of shoreline. He was headed back uphill, towards the inn and the familiar, fragile shape of the _Furudate._ The grounded glider crouched on the beach like some giant, age-old dragonfly, spreading its wide wings over the flocks of roosting seagulls.

A few yards from the glider, Iwaizumi paused, tilting his head to listen. There was a sound coming from the glider, faint but shrill enough to cut through the background rush of surf. A high, pervasive buzz, a lot like the battery powered safety lamps lowly replacing the old gas lights back home.

In fact...Iwaizumi rocked up onto his toes and tapped his heels on the ground, like the badgermoles drummed their claws to ‘see’ outside their burrows. The pictures in his mind were fuzzier on loose sand - it didn’t carry vibrations like solid seastone Seijoh - but he was pretty sure there was a...shape...in the tiny cockpit.

“How are you even _doing_ that?”

Oikawa squeaked and dropped his book on his face. He hadn’t noticed Iwaizumi’s approach. “D-doing what?”

“ _Fitting_ in there.” Iwaizumi tapped his heels again. “Seriously, do you have two sets of knees, or what?”

Oikawa had folded himself into some kind of complicated pretzel, curled up sideways in the narrow pilot’s seat with a blanket tucked around him, reading by the light of a little electric lantern buzzing away on the wing.

“I’ve got lots of practice,” he shrugged, stretching until his shoulders popped. “Hey, you put your cute feather-things back on!”

Iwaizumi frowned at him, sticking the _cute feather-thing_ comment in his ever-growing _deal with later_ pile in the back of his mind. “What happened to your _plans?”_ He asked, folding his arms. “No-one biting tonight?”

“They’re _girls,_ not fish, Iwa-chan,” Oikawa giggled. “Not really feeling it tonight, I guess.” He shrugged, but his heart jumped in his chest, and Iwaizumi glared. Oikawa was bending the truth, somehow.

“And you’re going to sleep _where,_ exactly?”

Oikawa’s expression turned slightly guilty, and he curled up tighter, pulling his blanket around his shoulders. Iwaizumi pinched the bridge of his nose with a groan.

“ _Oh_ no. _Nooooo_ no no no.”

“It’s _fine_ Iwa, I camp all the time--”

“Not when my hide depends on you staying awake, you don’t,” Iwaizumi grumbled, grabbing his arm. “C’mon, if you won’t pay for your own room there’s plenty of floor in mine.”

“Awww, _Iwa,_ your family pays for your room, I can’t-- ow! Ow. _Owwww. Okay okay okay alright, okay--”_

Oikawa hastily flipped off the lantern and scrambled out of the glider before Iwaizumi made good on his threats to bodily drag him inside. Iwaizumi fumed his way back up the hill, dragging Oikawa and his blanket cape behind him.

“Are you going to give your guest the bed like a gracious host, Iwa-chan?” Oikawa asked, fluttering his eyelashes as Iwaizumi shut the door behind him.

“You may have _one_ blanket.”

Oikawa pouted, but he hauled the down comforter (and both pillows) off the bed and set about constructing a nest in the corner with every sign of contentment. “I still would’ve been fine in the gli--”

That was as far as he got before an explosive clap of thunder rattled the windows. Iwaizumi grinned.

“Yeah yeah yeah, _shut up.”_

Iwaizumi started slightly as Oikawa crashed onto the bed beside him.

“I can’t help but wonder,” he said, unbuckling the metal brace on his knee, “what’s at the Air Temple for you, anyway?”

“O-oh.” Iwaizumi shifted, rubbing at the back of his neck. “There’s a scholar there, a teacher...she’s blind, but not...not born with it, like me. She’s starting a school, and her own library at the temple. I guess she made some kind of printing press that makes books you can read by touch…”

“That’s wonderful.”

“Yeah. Yeah...I suppose it is....”

Oikawa tilted his head to the side, and Iwaizumi felt those big, watchful eyes on his face. “Not your first choice of career, eh?”

Iwaizumi gave a miserable shrug. “It’s my _only_ choice. Really, the only one. I can’t keep...livin’ like I was, I know that. Lying about who I was no matter where I went. Couldn’t keep being...Iwaizumi Hajime, _noble son of a noble house”_ \--he tugged reflexively on his feathers -- “or Iwa...Seijoh the wrestler, and neither one of ‘em are really _real…”_

“Okay, so what about _you?_ What about just...Iwa Hajime?” Oikawa dropped his knee brace with a clank, and poked Iwaizumi in the shoulder. “What’s _he_ want?”

Iwaizumi huffed, propping both elbows on his knees and rested his chin on his hands. “I don’t even know who he _is,_ Oikawa.”

Oikawa didn’t say anything. He just tilted his head again, and waited, patient and questioning. Iwaizumi sighed, and shrugged.

“Something had to give, I know that. Something had to change, and...well, a library for the blind doesn’t sound so bad. I’d like to be able to read.”

“You...you can’t…”

Iwaizumi furrowed his brows at Oikawa. The pilot was staring at him, bug eyed and gaping like a frogfly.

“You can’t _read,”_ he said like the realization had just struck him. “You can’t...you’ve never...you can’t _read…”_

“Uh...no, Oikawa, blindness does not generally make a magical exception for books…”

“ _No!”_ Oikawa slammed his hands down on the bed, bouncing them both in an explosion of creaking. “No, this will not stand. I won’t allow it.” The next second he was on his knees next to the hotel bookshelf, flipping through the meager selection.

“No, no, _ew,_ stupid romance mass produced crap. _Unacceptable._ We require _quality.”_ He slapped his knee brace on over his pants and slammed out the door. A moment later he slammed back in. “And I’m coming _back_ too, you better not lock me out, Iwa-chan.” He slammed out.

Iwaizumi sat in the ringing silence of his departure and tried to figure out what the hell just happened.

True to his word, Oikawa was back in a few minutes, dripping tropical rain with a stack of books in his arms.

“We shall begin here.”

“Do you have some kind of _library_ hidden in your plane?”

“ _Yes.”_

“You...did hear me say I can’t read, right?” Iwaizumi picked up the top book off the stack as Oikawa collapsed back onto the bed. It was leather bound, the covers soft and the pages worn and creased in places, even rippled with spots of water damage. It had clearly been well loved.

“Yeah, but _I_ can.” Oikawa plucked the book out of his hands. “Out loud.”

Iwaizumi couldn’t help but smile. “You’re gonna read to me?”

“You’re missing out on _so much,_ Iwa-chan!” Oikawa pleaded. “Please? It’s my favorite, just give it a few pages.”

“Okay!” Iwaizumi held up his hands in defeat. “Okay, I’ll bite. A few pages.”

“Eee, yay.” Oikawa settled into his blanket nest, supporting himself against the wall to keep his weight off his bad knee. “ _Locke Lamora’s rule of thumb was this,”_ he began, and Iwaizumi smiled to himself and flopped back on the bed, sticking his hands behind his head. “ _A good confidence game took three months to plan, three weeks to rehearse, and three seconds to make or break forever.”_

* * *

 

“Oh my God. _Oh_ my _God!”_

_“I know, right?”_

“Wait, so Patience…”

“Yup.”

“She planned the whole _thing?”_

“Yup!”

“Just to fuck with their heads?”

“Yup!” Oikawa said gleefully, bouncing in place. Iwaizumi sat back and scraped his hands through his hair: he’d been tugging on it in suspense for most of the last hour.

“What a _bitch!”_

Oikawa burst out laughing. “Normally I’d object to your choice of words, but...she kinda owns it, doesn’t she?”

 “ _Magnificent_ bitch?” Iwaizumi suggested.

“Oh hell yeah.”

They grinned at each other, and Oikawa coughed into his fist and reached for the nearly empty jug of water.

“It’s been more than a few pages, hasn’t it?” Iwaizumi asked ruefully.

“It’s been about a third of the book, Iwa-chan.”

“ _Shit._ You need to sleep.”

Oikawa yawned and stretched, with a series of cracks that made Iwaizumi wince reflexively. “If we can even take off tomorrow...this storm sounds like a blower to me. We could be here a couple days.”

“Fine, _I_ need sleep,” Iwaizumi huffed, and Oikawa chuckled.

“Will it bother you if I leave the light for a oh this is a really _stupid_ question isn’t it?”

Iwaizumi laughed, settling down and curling onto his side. “Hey. Oikawa?”

“Mm?”

“Thanks.”

“Thanks?” Oikawa’s head tipped to the side. “What for?”

“For...you’re…” Iwaizumi waved his hands in the air. “You’re a deceptively good listener, you know that?”

Oikawa was quiet long enough that Iwaizumi began to worry that he’d said something wrong. “Tooru?”

“I...I feel like I’ve been insulted, but I can’t figure out how…”

Iwaizumi laughed, and threw the bundled up jacket he’d been using as a pillow at him. “Go to sleep, Tooru.”

He snuggled down and closed his eyes, hoping his on again, off again insomnia would let him sleep. After a few minutes of listening to the rain, his sensitive ears found another sound, low and soothing and steady beneath the noise of the storm.

Iwaizumi smiled to himself, and drifted off listening to the sound of Oikawa Tooru’s heart beat.

Oikawa’s instincts turned out to be good. Overnight, the heavy rain worked itself up into a true, gusting tropical storm, heavy winds throwing sheets of wind and hail against the inn’s creaky timbers.

Iwaizumi and Oikawa made a few sprinting trips through the rain, to grab books and maps and an actual bedroll from the belly of the glider. Oikawa braved the rain a bit longer, wrapped in a North Pole sealskin coat with his goggles over his eyes, loosening lines and covering instruments and triple-checking the mooring ropes that held the lightweight craft against the wind. Iwaizumi waited for him under the eaves, dripping hair plastered to his forehead, and listened to the howling of an open-sea storm.

“How long do you think we’ll be stuck for?” He called over the wind as Oikawa rejoined him, shaking rainwater out of his bangs.

“No telling.” Oikawa pushed his hood back, breathless from the storm. “Probably not more than a few days, but it’s hard to tell with these little gale systems. It could pass over and then make a U-turn and come right back to fuck us up all over again.” He leaned against the wall beside Iwaizumi, chewing on his lip as he shook the water out of his bangs.

“What’s wrong?” Iwaizumi asked, taking in his hunched shoulders and bowed head.

“Hm? Oh...nothing. Don’t worry about it…”

Iwaizumi snorted, folding his arms across his chest. “You’re a terrible liar, you know that?”

Oikawa sighed, a soft little noise almost lost under the rain. “Two of the support cables on the left wing are fraying. I had that whole wing restrung after the last storm season...it shouldn’t be showing wear for another _year.”_

Iwaizumi swallowed hard, his stomach suddenly hollow. “Can we still fly?”

Oikawa nodded, slowly. “It’s just a few worn threads at the tension points...but I don’t like the trend its setting. He turned towards Iwaizumi, searching his face. “I won’t fly if you don’t want to, though. We can hitch out on one of the fishing boats, get somewhere with a radio line--”

Iwaizumi paused, mouth open, half imagining he could feel the tingle of Oikawa’s eyes on his skin. Every time he thought he was getting a handle on Oikawa Tooru, this soft, sincere side knocked him flat again.

“You think it’s safe?”

Oikawa nodded again.

“Then I trust you,” Iwaizumi replied, just as soft. Oikawa shivered, so hard Iwaizumi felt it through the wall behind them. “C’mon, let’s get inside. It’s freezing out here.

 

By the next morning the hurricane winds had died down, but the rain had settled into the unbroken waterfall roar of a summer storm hunkered down for a stay. Iwaizumi spent the afternoon pinballing restlessly around their little shared room. He ran through every exercise he could adapt to the limited space, and even some of the fluid airbender forms Oikawa attempted to teach him. Oikawa just curled up on the end of the bed while Iwaizumi prowled the confined space, and simply read for hours.

Eventually, Iwaizumi gave up on moving and flopped down beside him. He idly practiced metal-bending for a while, twirling a fork swiped from the common room around his hands and letting Oikawa’s voice wash over him in a wave, sweeping him away with the story.

This time, he didn’t even remember falling asleep.

 

“I’m beginning to believe it’s possible to die from boredom,” Oikawa whined into his arms the next evening, slumped across the table between them.

“Is that a comment on cabin fever, or my move time?” Iwaizumi asked mildly. He drummed his fingers on the table, still focused on the chessboard between them.

“ _Both.”_

They’d found about one third of a chess set in a disused corner the previous night, and now the ranks of pieces were filled out with coins and pebbles and bits of silverware.

“Don’t rush genius, Kawa,” Iwaizumi chided, considering the positions of his knights.”

“And you call _me_ arrogant,” Oikawa muttered, rolling his head listlessly back and forth on his arms. “Just because you had fancy private _tutors_ for chess playing you think you’re so cool…”

Iwaizumi tapped the heel of his palm on the board, and his pebble knight popped up and hopped over one of Oikawa’s rooks.

“Kawa.”

“I learned it the _hard_ way, no fancy books and teachers for _me…”_

_“Kawa.”_

_“What.”_

“Check.”

Oikawa’s head popped off his arms. “ _How.”_

“I told you. Genius.”

“Ohhh fuck you…” Oikawa glared at the board, and then blew out a sigh and flipped a piece across the table. “There. _Un-_ check.”

Iwaizumi rolled his eyes. “That’s _my_ queen, idiot. Yours has been over here with me since turn nine, remember?”

“Right. My queen seduced your queen while in captivity and convinced her to assassinate her worthless husband and seize the throne for herself.”

Iwaizumi frowned. “My queen is a fork.”

“Well maybe my queen’s _into_ that!”

Iwaizumi grinned at him, propping his chin on his hand. “Is this a concession?”

“This is _revolution,_ Iwa-chan.”

“Well....” Iwaizumi tilted his head, considering. “Kings _are_ pretty worthless…”

“ _Right._ Anyone who’s played this stupid game knows the ladies should be running the place.”

“You’re not wrong...unfortunately, my bishops are fanatically loyal to their king…”

“Good. ‘Cause my knights are taking _this_ one hostage--”

“ _I’ve got a double-bacon and cheese sandwich and a salmon soup and salad!”_ One of the barmaids called across the crowded room. Iwaizumi shoved his chair back with a sigh.

“That’s us, I’ll get it. Let’s eat before this game gets any sillier…”

By the time he made it back, picking his way across the busy room balancing two steaming plates of food, the board had undergone major change.

“What fresh hell…” Iwaizumi asked, trying to map out the new arrangement. The higher pieces had been surrounded by rings of pawns from both sides. Some of them were carrying toothpick-and-napkin-scrap pickets.

“The pawns revolted. They’re demanding democratic elections.”

 

“Okay,” Oikawa said, most of an hour later, cleaning the last of his soup out of the bowl with a scrap of bread. “Where’d we end up?”

“Well.” Iwaizumi popped a last bit of cheese into his mouth, and counted off on his fingers as he chewed. “The pawns deposed the monarchy and elected Petrified-Raisin Pawn as the head of a democratic parliament.”

“Nice. Was he yours or mine?”

“Gods, I don’t remember. Does it matter?”

“Probably not. Continue.”

“Right. Your king--”

“--chopstick--”

“--whatever. Was executed during the storming of the back row, after which mine chose to peacefully abdicate and was placed under house arrest--” he tapped the upturned cup holding his king, weighted down by all four knights. “--by the knights of both sides, who formed a citizens militia and joined the revolution. Your queen was exiled to a desert island for her part in the assassination plot, but mine chose to decline a place in the new republic and follow her lover into exile.” One red queen and her slightly bent fork lover were resting by a warm corner of the inn’s big fireplace.

“Y’know,” Oikawa said thoughtfully, still chewing, “I’ve paid money to see plays that were dumber.”

“We should write this down.”

“We’d be rich.”

They grinned at each other across the scattered chessboard, and at the same instant they both burst out laughing.

* * *

 

“Iwa. Iwa, c’mon, wake up.”

Iwaizumi groaned, burrowing into the folded up jacket serving as his pillow while Oikawa gently shook his shoulder. “‘S it morning?”

“Just barely,” Oikawa said, with a faint smile. “Get up, okay? The rain stopped about half an hour ago.”

Iwaizumi sat up creakily, rubbing his face. He realized that the soft pattering he’d written off as endless rain was actually Oikawa’s little coffee pot, bubbling away on top of the bookshelf. The smell filled the room. “Storm’s past?” He mumbled, sitting up and shrugging on his jacket.

“It turned. If we get in the air fast, we can ride it’s tailwind straight to the temple.” Oikawa paused by the bed again, his pack already over his shoulder, and pressed a cup of his syrup-like coffee into Iwaizumi’s hands. “Layer up, Iwa-chan. It’s gonna be cold up there.”

By the time Iwaizumi had flung on most of the clothes in his pack and stumbled out into the chilly air, Oikawa was finishing up his final checks and stowing away the _Furudate’s_ anchor lines. His arm flicked out as Iwaizumi approached, and Iwaizumi yelped as something soft and leathery bounced off his face.

“Ooo.” Oikawa winced. “Er. Sorry. Forgot again.”

“You and your throwing things,” Iwaizumi groused, picking up the fleece-lined mittens and hat Oikawa had thrown at him. “It’s going to be _this_ cold?”

“Trust me, you’ll want it when we hit the slipstream,” Oikawa said cheerfully, tugging his own hat over his hair. “Eee, I haven’t gone storm-skipping in _forever…_ ”

“Storm skipping,” Iwaizumi mumbled to himself, stuffing his pack into the glider and feeling his way into his seat. He was suddenly glad he hadn’t had time to eat anything.

The takeoff was a little less terrifying the second time around, now that he knew what to expect...and how to deal with it. As he felt the nose of the glider tip up and the sickening sensation of the ground dropping away, Iwaizumi tugged his leather mittens off, shoved them between his teeth, and spread his bare fingers against the back of Oikawa’s seat. With the forces of acceleration dragging at him and the tide wind whistling in his ears, it took him a moment to find it...the steady, reassuring pulse of Oikawa’s heart.

“Are you _feeling_ me again?” Oikawa called back teasingly, once the glider finished its climb and leveled out in the slipstream. “You’re gonna freeze your fingers off, you know.” With the wind under them, he’d cut the battery powered propellers, and the glider swooped and dropped on the rushing storm winds.

“Hang me, you’re _solid,”_ Iwaizumi mumbled back, his eyes squeezed instinctively shut as he concentrated.

“I bet you say that to all the girls.”

“You already _used_ that line,” Iwaizumi grunted through clenched teeth. He took a slow, deep breath, trying and failing to match his racing pulse with Oikawa’s. “So this is storm-skipping, huh?” Anyone who grew up on an island with as much boat traffic as Seijoh knew about storm skippers, the daredevil glider pilots who’d fly under hurricane winds and polar storms when the bison were grounded, sometimes literally hopping across the top of waves the size of Republic City buildings to bring supplies to the poles or pick up shipwrecked sailors.

“After a fashion,” Oikawa called back, laughter in his voice, and Iwaizumi realized with disgust that the pilot was having _fun._ “Storm skipping is usually a lot _wetter_ than this.”

“I’ll take your word for it.”

“You may not have to if the storm turns again.”

“Oh _stop talking,”_ Iwaizumi groaned, digging his fingers into the back of Oikawa’s seat.

He hadn’t been kidding about the cold in the slipstream wind behind the storm. Within minutes, Iwaizumi’s nose and cheeks were blasted raw and numb by the freezing air, a world apart from the damp steamy warmth down at sea level. His fingers burned and tingled with cold, but the sensations kept him anchored despite the discomfort edging into pain. No matter how cold it got, he didn’t want to dull his last remaining sense with layers of leather and fleece.

He would realize later, much later, once injuries had healed and nightmares had faded a little, that his pointless, stubborn determination to leave his gloves off had probably saved both their lives.

At first, he thought the little echoing _plink_ at the edge of his senses, half heard half felt, was sleet striking the taut canvas wings. Every few minutes, bright and metallic. _Plink._ Singing through his head and in a bright quick buzz like a wasp’s wings against glass. _Plink._

“Hey, Iwa. Remember what I said about the storm turning…”

“Oh, you’re _kidding_ me.”

“It’s okay!” Oikawa said, but the light, teasing edge was gone from his voice. He was still calm, still in control, but he was serious now. “The wind’s just turning back our way a little. I’m going to have to take us down closer to the water, alright? The waves are getting big and there’s a lot of updrafts coming off the shallows where the air’s warm, so it’s going to get bumpy. That’s what gliders are designed for, we’ll ride it out just fine, okay? High surf is no problem for us”

Iwaizumi clenched his teeth, nails cutting crescents into the leather in front of him.

“Okay?” Oikawa repeated.

“Yeah,” Iwaizumi nodded, squeezing his eyes shut again. “Yeah, okay.”

_Plink_

The glider’s nose turned down, propellers firing up again to control shallow dive, and Iwaizumi sucked in a breath, hands flying out instinctively to grip the sides of the cockpit. Wind roared in his ears and he felt the tension through Oikawa’s muscles as he pulled back, dragging the glider up out of its dive. Surf crashed under them, just  few meters below the glider’s wheels, and they rode a swell of warm air from the giant waves below, up and over in a bobbing arc. Oikawa whooped over the wind, and Iwaizumi’s fingers clenched, feeling his stomach jolt up under his ribs. _Plink, plinkplinkplink,_ tiny bright vibrations echoing under his hands as ice hit the wings…

But they were low again. They were out of the slipstream now, down in the warm updrafts above the shallow ocean.

Feeling like his heart had stopped beating entirely, Iwaizumi unclenched his left hand and spread it flat over the surface of the wing.

_Plinkplinkplink._

There was no ice at this altitude.

“Oikawa. _Oikawa!”_

“What’s wrong?”

“Which cables were frayed?” Iwaizumi gabbled, just barely loud enough to be heard over the wind, as though speaking too loudly would jolt the wing more. “In the left wing. _Which cables were fraying?”_

“It was just a few threads, Iwa--”

_“Which ones?”_

The urgency in his voice must have struck a chord, because when Oikawa answered, he was deadly serious. “Five and seven. Counting out from the body of the glider.”

Iwaizumi gritted his teeth and leaned, swiveling as far as the safety harness would let him, and flattened both hands against the canvas skin of the left wing.

_Plinkplinkplinkplinkplink_

His stomach heaved as he tried to concentrate on the mass of shifting shapes in his mind, temples squeezing with the start of a sick headache as the glider bobbed over another giant swell. Iwaizumi forced the nausea down, gritting his teeth as his throat clenched, and _focused,_ counting the spiderweb-thin cables under the skin of the wing.

 _Plink, plink, plinkplinkplink_ the tiny sounds were accelerating now, not the sounds of ice striking but the sounds of metal threads snapping: the tiny steel wires spun together in the glider cables breaking under the tension, one by one.

“ _They’re breaking!”_

_“What?”_

“I can _feel_ it!” Iwaizumi yelled. His fingers were still half numb but there was no doubt in his mind what he was feeling. “I can _hear_ it, the threads are breaking. Right at the edge, the….the tension point. Not just three and seven--” he fought down another swell of nausea and concentrated again, slapping his palms against the stretched canvas and feeling the vibrations as the rushed up his arms, counting weak spots…”Three...seven... _five, nine, ten, thirteen, eight--”_

 _“Shit. Shit._ Okay.” Iwaizumi felt the deep breath Oikawa sucked in, concentrating hard as he guided the glider over another swell. The waves were getting louder, crashing more and more violently in shallow water. “We’re over a chain of islands here, I can see a big one to the northeast. I’m going to put us down there, okay? Iwa, it’s not far, but it’s going to put us right back into the storm wall. It’ll be rough, but we’ll be _okay.”_

“ _Rough seas don’t matter to us,”_ Iwaizumi mumbled, pressing his hands against his throbbing temples.

“ _Damn_ right. Hang on. Keep your arms in, okay?”

Iwaizumi nodded, but he dropped his left hand and pressed it against the inside of the cockpit wall. _Plinkplinkplink._

 _“Hang on!”_ Oikawa yelled. The sound of the propellers kicked up and the glider banked hard, left and down even closer to the surging ocean below. The tide winds caught the _Furudate_ and threw it forward like a javelin, right into the closest spiral arm of the storm.

The first wave of rain hit like a slap to the face, pushing Iwaizumi’s head down with the sheer force of falling water. The glider bucked, but Oikawa held it steady, driving them steadily down against the wind--

_Plink. Plink plink. Plink...plink...plink…_

_“SEVEN!”_ Iwaizumi yelled at the top of his lungs, head shooting up as he pressed his hand harder against the glider wall.

_CRACK_

The cable broke with a noise like a gunshot and Oikawa swore in a language Iwaizumi didn’t recognize as the glider dipped and heeled left, the sound of loose canvas snapping in the gale suddenly as loud as the roaring waves below.

 _“Hold on!”_ He yelled again, voice strained as he fought with the controls of the bucking glider and the second cable broke with a snap that echoed through Iwaizumi’s head. _Crack, crack, CRACK_ three more followed it in quick succession, and the outer third of the _Furudate’s_ wing crumpled like a tablecloth jerked off a table.

From that second onward, Iwaizumi was lost. His tenuous mental image of the storm-tossed glider collapsed with the wing and he was back in blind chaos, helpless as he’d been as a child, as if he’d never found the badgermoles, never learned to use the earth to let him see--

On pure instinct, he flung his hand out, slamming them against the back of the pilot’s seat and struggling to spread numb, frozen fingers, but even that landmark was gone, Oikawa’s heartbeat was gone _Oikawa_ was gone, couldn’t find anything in the tumbling, bucking skeleton of the crippled glider tumbling through the teeth of the storm.

The landing, when it came, jarred him straight to the bone. There was no gentle slowdown, no easy, shallow dive to the beach: the fluttering glider just _dropped,_ hitting the ground with a force that slammed his teeth together and sent spikes of pain radiating from every jarred joint and the shifting falling bucking didn’t _stop_ he was on the ground but falling at the same time the glider’s intangible skeleton dancing around him, tail flipping and crippled wing flapping, trying to throw him back into the abyss--

Iwaizumi yelled in terror, numb fingers scrabbling at the buckles locking him in the bucking glider. He found the catch but it wouldn’t budge, the edges sliced against his fingers as he wrenched at it growing panic, tearing his nails.

“Iwa! _Iwa! I’ve got you, I’ve got you, come on--”_

Iwaizumi let out a gasp that was half a sob at the feeling of hands on his chest. Oikawa’s fingers joined his, wrenching at the jammed harness buckle. Iwaizumi clutched at his arms, trying to ground himself as the glider danced on the wind, broken wing scything back and forth. Storm winds caught under the off-balance craft’s one whole wing lifting it and dropping it again like a careless child’s toy, threatening to send the whole thing rolling and taking Iwaizumi with it, back into the air, the sea, what was the difference there _was_ no difference--

“-okay? _Are you okay?”_ Oikawa was asking him, his hands everywhere at once, running over the deep welts where the harness had cut into Iwaizumi’s shoulders, over his neck and his scalp, checking for injuries. Iwaizumi could only cling to him, gasping in terror as the glider shook again, so lost to the vertigo he could barely speak. Oikawa cursed under his breath and fumbled for something at his belt, letting Iwaizumi keep his death grip on his free hand. Something made him look up and Iwaizumi felt his pulse spike wildly, another curse hissing between his teeth.

A gust of wind roared across the low-lying island and _the Furudate_ finally pitched over, rolling onto its crumpled left side, taking the trapped Iwaizumi with it and half-pinning Oikawa beneath the mass of loose canvas and slicing, broken wires. And there was another sound, another _feeling_ that smacked into Iwaizumi’s senses as the glider tipped and his shoulder hit the sand _,_ a rushing roar beyond the howling hurricane wind, coming _closer--_

And then Oikawa’s belt knife was slicing through the harness straps over his shoulders and the pilot dragged him out of the toppled glider with a grunt of effort. Iwaizumi struggled to help him, to be anything other than a dead weight of vertigo and terror as Oikawa fought his weight, the sand and the wind and the crumpled wing above them.

“Come on, come _on,”_ he was yelling above the howling of the storm, and for the first time Iwaizumi heard real _panic_ in his voice.

“ _Oikawa,”_ he croaked, clutching at the pilot’s hand. “Kawa what’s happening--”

Oikawa dug his feet into the sand and hauled, dragging him frantically away from the downed glider.

“What’s _happening--”_

Oikawa’s eyes weren’t on him. They were fixed over Iwaizumi’s shoulder, and a background rush of surf was suddenly an oncoming freight train _roar._

 _“Wave,”_ Oikawa croaked, and then with a last desperate effort he heaved Iwaizumi to his feet and shoved him _hard_ across the beach, away from the tumbled wreck of the _Furudate._

And the last clear thing Iwaizumi felt before the wall of water slammed down across the tiny island was Oikawa’s hand being wrenched from his.


	4. Time to a Stone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Minor injury and blood warnings for this chapter - nothing major or graphic, but please be aware!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some links! Tumblr user sodap6p drew Iwa and Oikawa looking [incredibly amazingly beautiful](http://disfunctional-m.tumblr.com/post/141769972352/sodap6p-storm-season-by-kenjiandco-lok-iwaoi) and I am forever grateful ;;
> 
> And my wonderful lemonorangelime (dot tumblr dot com) was kind enough to draw [Iwa wearing his feathers](https://twitter.com/lemonwerewolf/status/719018560622710784), if you were wondering what those look like . 
> 
> Anyone who accuses me of stealing design elements from Tales games is a dirty dirty liar
> 
> Please enjoy!

Even years later, Iwaizumi would never know where Oikawa found the strength to throw him out of the path of the wave. Off balance and half-pinned and probably in a hundred kinds of pain from the crash, he still somehow managed to get both hands on his disoriented passenger and fling him up the sloping beach, away from the dancing glider and the oncoming wall of water.

Iwaizumi stayed on his feet by pure luck, reaching out to the sand beneath him and letting it swallow his feet to the ankle, keeping him anchored on the beach as freezing surf surged around his legs, head swirling as he reoriented to the solid ground beneath him.  The storm wave screamed across the narrow strip of beach, moving fast but it had already spent most of its power breaking through the trees at the center of the island, it was tall but it wouldn’t hit hard, he could keep his feet--

He could keep his feet, but Oikawa wasn’t _on_ his feet, he’d given up his balance to fling his terrified, disoriented passenger out of danger and sent himself crashing back into the wreck of the toppled glider, tangled in the loose canvas of the collapsed wing and fighting to get back to his feet, Iwaizumi sensed him push himself free of the wing only for his bad knee to give out and send him crashing back down, and --

And then the wave hit.

The whole nightmare screamed through Iwaizumi’s head in a handful of seconds as the onslaught of freezing water forced him to his knees, pinned down by the power of the wave, he couldn’t move, no _time_ to do anything, _no time, no time, no TIME--_

_No time? What’s time to a stone?_

His fingers clenched in the sand, digging in deep...scraping across the solid stone beneath.

_What’s time to the earth? An earthbender always has_ time.

_“Rough seas don’t matter to us,”_ Iwaizumi snarled, spitting seawater. What did a wave matter, when his feet were on the ground again? He was an earthbender, he was a son of Seijoh, and he was _done_ being helpless.

He’d lost track of Oikawa’s delicate form but the path of the wave was clear as a beacon in his mind, stretching from the dancing shape of the glider down the sloping beach. Iwaizumi clenched his fingers in the sand, _twisted,_ and the ground opened under the _Furudate’s_ wheels, tugging them down and anchoring it against the rushing water. Iwaizumi gritted his teeth and spread his fingers, moving them through the packed wet sand easily as air, feeling for the solid stone foundation of the island beneath. He traced the path of the wave in his mind, made his best guess, and swept both hands up and out, feeling the tremor through his bones as the island answered his call.

He felt the slabs of rock spring up out of the beach in the path of the wave, sand pouring off their sheer sides, and he was already running, calling on the sand to push against his feet as they slipped. The last dregs of retreating surf rushed around his knees and he let it push them on feeling, _feeling, please let me have caught him, please,_ please, he could feel the building roar of another wave rushing ahead of the storm winds, but--

But there was a delicate shape sprawled on the sand at the base of the wall he’d thrown up, the only other solid form amidst the surging water, leg twisted behind him at an awkward angle and _far_ too still. He must have barely clipped the edge of Iwaizumi’s breaker, but it had been enough to knock him out of the teeth of the wave.

“ _Oikawa!”_ Iwaizumi yelled, his voice was hoarse from the salt and the screaming and it was swallowed up by the storm and the crash of a second wave hitting the beach. Iwaizumi snarled, hardening the sand under his feet, giving himself a solid surface to kick into a headlong dive. He caught Oikawa’s jacket with one hand and dug the other into the sand, _reaching_ for the stone beneath as he hauled Oikawa back against the storm break. As soon as they were clear, both huddled against the narrow strip of stone, he clenched his fingers and _pulled,_ calling up another wall of rock from beneath the sand, let it fall at an angle against the first--

The second wave crashed and broke around the little stone lean-to, surf splashing in through the open sides until Iwaizumi got both hands back in the sand and called up more slabs of rock to close the gap and the roar of the storm and the waves were suddenly muffled, and Iwaizumi slumped to his hands and knees, panting and aware for the first time that he hurt absolutely _everywhere_. The cramped, wet space filled with loud, echoing sloshing as the water drained away through the cracks between the slabs... and then it was filled with the incredibly welcome sound of Oikawa coughing.

“Iwa?” He croaked, voice still bubbly, and coughed again, spitting up more seawater. “Iwa? _Iwa!”_ His voice cracked in panic, and Iwaizumi shook off his daze and reached out, catching the pilot’s shoulders.

“I’m here, I’m right here, hey--”

Oikawa choked and clutched at his arms, half-sobbing. “ _Iwa--”_

_“_ Hey, _hey,_ you’re okay, we’re okay, Kawa…” he ran his hands up and down Oikawa’s arms, trying to be comforting, and Oikawa collapsed against him, trembling head to foot.

“Iwa, I thought...you didn’t...I th-thought...it’s so _dark…”_

Iwaizumi bit his lip, letting Oikawa lean on him and squeezing his shoulders. It hadn’t occurred to him that their little stone shelter must be black as a cave to Oikawa’s eyes.

“Sorry, Kawa, I know...but it’ll stop the waves…”

Oikawa let out a long, shaky breath, and seemed to make an effort to pull himself together. He moved to sit back...and then crumpled against Iwaizumi’s shoulder again, hands flying to his knee as he choked on a whimper of pain. Iwaizumi’s heart squeezed in fear.

“You hurt?”

“M-my knee...when I hit the...the _rock…”_ Oikawa tried to move again, and this time he couldn’t bite off the sharp cry of pain.

“Shit, _shit,_ okay, stop _moving_ you idiot…” Iwaizumi set his fingers gently on Oikawa’s knee, and hissed between his teeth. Oikawa’s pants were tacky and warm with blood mixing with the seawater. “ _Gods._ Do you still have your knife?”

Oikawa shook his head, gritting his teeth, and Iwaizumi bit his lip. “Okay. Okay…” _Think..._ he knocked his knuckles against the stone over his head, and a few shards cracked loose and dropped onto the wet sand. Iwaizumi found one with some kind of edge and half-sliced, half-ripped Oikawa’s tough canvas pants away from his leg, the stone skipping over the metal struts of his brace.

“M-my knee brace…” Oikawa whispered, as Iwaizumi swore under his breath. Oikawa must have hit the stone practically knee-first. The metal struts of his brace had buckled and snapped in half a dozen places...and two jagged spars stabbed deep into the top of his calf muscle, just below the knee.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” Iwaizumi heard himself whispering, over and over as he carefully unbuckled what was left of the brace. Oikawa whimpered again, pressing his forehead against Iwaizumi’s shoulder as he slid the broken spars free.

The two cuts were deep, but they were just small punctures, already scabbed over by the time Iwaizumi had ripped enough strips out of the lining of his jacket (the closest thing on either of them to clean) to bandage them. But Oikawa’s knee was swelling and warm to the touch, and Iwaizumi had a sinking feeling that the two bloody punctures were the least of the damage. And there wasn’t a damn thing they could do about it now, not with the storm still hammering rain and waves down on their impromptu stone shelter.

“What about you?” Oikawa asked as Iwaizumi tucked in the ends of the makeshift bandages. “You hurt?”

Iwaizumi sighed and settled himself against one of the side walls with a wince, content to let Oikawa keep leaning on his shoulder. “I mean, I hurt _everywhere,_ but none of it feels serious. Thanks to you.” Some of the terror and panicked adrenaline was draining away now, leaving him feeling hollow and exhausted, but he had clear space in his head to sort through the frantic tumble of disaster. “You _landed_ us. You landed the fucking plane with half the _wing_ gone…”

“Gods, Iwa…” Oikawa shook his head, and his arms wrapped around Iwaizumi’s neck in the dark. “I’d have flipped us straight into the ocean if you hadn’t warned me.” He was still trembling, whether from cold or adrenaline or fear he couldn’t tell.

“Nah.” Iwaizumi let his arms settle around Oikawa’s waist. “You’re too good to let that happen. _Best damned pilot in the skies,_ right?”

“Y-you could’ve died…”

“But I didn’t. _We_ didn’t. We’re both here, and we’re okay, and it’s ‘cause of _you.”_ He squeezed gently, and felt Oikawa’s face press against the curve of his shoulder, tears stinging hot against his chilled skin.

Iwaizumi tried to find some vaguely comfortable position against the rock behind him, listening to the storm as his exhausted pilot drifted to sleep on his shoulder.

Oikawa felt too _still,_ more passed out than asleep, his breathing soft and shallow and hard to hear over the raiin. Iwaizumi pressed his nose into Oikawa’s damp and salt-stiff hair, hugging him tighter against his chest.

_He’s here, he’s_ here _, he’s okay, he’s here with me and not thrown a million miles out to sea by that damned_ wave...Iwaizumi shivered, his mind replaying those awful few moments when he’d lost Oikawa to the rushing water, certain he’d been too late to catch him..feeling him sprawled broken and still at the bottom of the storm while the receding water surged around him…

He sniffled, glad Oikawa wasn’t awake to hear his hitching breath, and pressed his fingers against Oikawa’s throat, under the collar of his sodden jacket. He tightened the arm around Oikawa’s waist, and Oikawa mumbled without waking, nuzzling closer. His breath was too soft to hear, but his pulse beat clear and steady under Iwaizumi’s fingers.

_Never again,_ he thought, focusing all his senses on the gentle fluttering under his fingers. _Never ever again._

 

He’d had every intention of staying awake but the next thing he knew, the noise of the storm was replaced by raucous birdsong, the inside of his head felt full of fluff, and Oikawa was squirming sleepily against his chest.

“ _Nrf..._ how long’sit been…”

“No idea,” Iwa croaked, throat dry and legs asleep and absolutely everything aching even _more._ He freed a hand and waved it idly, dropping the stone walls of their shelter back into the sand.

Wet, hot sunlight slapped into his skin, and Oikawa groaned, hiding his eyes in Iwaizumi’s shoulder. _“Briiiiiiiiight….”_

“Well, that’s a good thing, right?” Iwaizumi resisted the urge to just flop back into the sand without the stone to lean against. “Think you can walk?”

“...I can probably stagger.”

A few minutes of agonized groaning later, they were both on their feet, Oikawa’s arm draped over Iwaizumi’s shoulder and sweat already beading on their skin from the blazing sun.

“Hey!” Oikawa gasped, sucking in a breath between his teeth. “You’re hurt too?”

“What?”

Oikawa gently touched the side of Iwaizumi’s face, and Iwaizumi flinched as something flaked off his skin. He touched the same spot, blinking as his fingers brushed over crusted streams of dried blood clinging to his cheek. His ear throbbed dully…

“Oh Iwa…” Oikawa said. “Iwa, your feathers.”

Numbly, Iwaizumi raised his hand to the tear in the rim of his ear, hissing at the sudden sting as a half-formed scab shifted. The piercing in his other ear was still intact, but both sets of feathers were gone.

“It’s okay,” he said, sounding dull and frozen even to his own ears. “They’re just things.”

“They’re _not…”_ Oikawa whispered, but Iwaizumi just shook his head, and he didn’t press the issue. “It doesn’t look too bad at least. C’mon, I’ve got a med kit in the...in the glider…”

Oikawa trailed off, and turned slowly to look up the beach, shading his eyes against the sun. “Oh baby…” he sighed. “Oh my poor baby girl, what did they do to you?”

Iwaizumi shifted his arm off Oikawa’s waist and spread his fingers. Oikawa squeaked as the glider rumbled back to the surface, the sand clamped around its wheels releasing it and gently pushing it upright. The sea breeze caught in the loose skin of the broken wing, making it rattle and flap forlornly.

“ _Wow,_ Iwa…” Oikawa stared as the sand under the wheels settled back. “You did that?”

“I didn’t break anything, did I?” Iwaizumi asked, shuffling nervously.

Oikawa didn’t seem to hear him. “You pulled this off in the middle of a _hurricane_ and you _still_ caught me...you’re incredible, you know that?”

“ _Forget_ me,” Iwaizumi grumbled, feeling his cheeks heat up. “ _Did I break anything.”_

Oikawa’s eyes lingered on his face for a long moment, his expression something Iwaizumi couldn’t fathom.

“If you did, it’s not going to get worse anytime soon,” Oikawa said at last. “Unlike your ear.”

“I _said_ forget me--”

“Ignoring your own advice, Iwa-chan?” Oikawa hummed, his voice suddenly light and bright and not quite real again. He slipped his arm off of Iwaizumi’s shoulders and knelt on his good knee with a wince. “Can’t go running around with an untreated injury, right?”

Iwaizumi shuffled his feet again, knowing there was no hiding the blush this time. Hanamaki loved telling him his ears _glowed_ when his face felt this hot. Whatever the hell that meant.

“I keep forgetting you were around for that…”

“Right,” Oikawa chirped, voice muffled as he rooted around in the glider’s apparently bottomless storage compartments. “I know you’re secretly nice, so don’t try hiding behind your scary-eyebrow face on me. Now get your ear over... _woah…”_ he broke off suddenly, staring at an apparently normal patch of sand by the tail of the glider.

“What?” Iwaizumi frowned, kneeling beside him as Oikawa traced his fingertips around the shape in the sand. It was the impression of a boot toe - Iwaizumi’s toe - thrust up out of the sand like a reverse footprint, hard as millenia-old sandstone, and the first of a trail leading across the beach from the tail of the glider to the location of their emergency storm break.

“What?” Iwaizumi said again, shifting under Oikawa’s awestruck stare. “It’s _traction,_ you know how hard it is to run on sand...I just made my own solid surface...stop _looking_ at me like that…”

“ _Incredible,”_ Oikawa repeated, shaking his head. Iwaizumi just glared and snatched the medkit from him.

“Stop being embarrassing and let me see your knee…”

 

Iwaizumi tried, he _really_ tried, not to laugh at the range of unhappy squeaking noises Oikawa made as stinging disinfectant bubbled in the two deep punctures and dozen lesser cuts around his puffy knee. Oikawa pouted through the whole process, and then grabbed the kit back the second Iwaizumi finished re-wrapping, and insisted on cleaning and bandaging the small tear in Iwaizumi’s ear.

Both of them duly cleaned and bandaged, Oikawa groaned his way back to his feet and worked his way slowly over every inch of the glider, using Iwaizumi as a crutch again. Their damp clothes steamed in the heat of the tropical sun, and Oikawa paused in tugging cables and checking struts to fish a pair of canteens out of a pocket somewhere.

“How many of these do you have?” Iwaizumi asked nervously, gnawing at his lip as he listened to the water sloshing. With the shock and adrenaline fading, the reality of their predicament was starting to set in.

“Ten, including these two,” Oikawa said, drinking deeply, with none of Iwaizumi’s hesitation. “I’m pretty sure there’s a stream or something inland, too. I saw it when we flew over...one of the reasons I tried to land here. Listen to all those birds - they wouldn’t be here if there wasn’t fresh water close.” He sighed and nodded towards the horizon. “ _And_ it looks like there’s more rain heading our way…”

“Ah, _seriously?”_ Now that he’d said it, Iwaizumi could tell he was right: the wind out of the east was distinctly cool and heavy with moisture. “We’ll never be dry again…”

“Don’t worry, I’ve got a tent.” Oikawa ruffled Iwaizumi’s sweaty hair and went back to inspecting the wooden struts of the collapsed left wing. “And fishing gear, and food for a few days...this is far from the weirdest place I’ve been stuck during storm season. Plus--” he took his hands off the glider and flopped his weight back over Iwaizumi’s shoudlers. “The company is a lot better than usual.”

“ _Shut_ up.”

Oikawa giggled to himself, and used Iwaizumi as a support to lower himself down in the shade of the wing. He leaned against the glider with a sigh as Iwaizumi sat beside him.

“How bad is it?”

“Could be a hell of a lot worse, to be honest.” Oikawa’s voice was still light, but Iwaizumi could hear the tiredness and the pain creeping in around the edges. “There’s some cracks around the landing gear, but it’ll hold. And the actual wing strut is fine. I can patch the canvas where it needs it, re-string the cables, but…”

“But?”

Oikawa blew out a breath and reached into the mess of canvas over his head, pulling down the frayed, broken end of one of the wing cables.

“There’s something _wrong_ with this stuff. I mean, you lose a few threads here and there, over _years,_ but spider cable should never just...just _blow_ like this. Not in a tropical storm. And not nine cables at once. _And,”_ he said, voice dull, rubbing his knee with a wince. “I got the roll of replacement cable I’m carrying at the same time I had the wing restrung.”

Iwaizumi leaned against the glider beside him, trying to think of something to say. He knew he should, on some level at least, be a little scared about their predicament..but all he could think was that Oikawa sounded defeated and exhausted and hurt and he _hated_ it.

“Well. Shit.”

“Yeah.”

That seemed to about cover it.

“Hey,” Oikawa said eventually, as the wind picked up speed a little, cooler with the sinking sun and the oncoming rain. “I know this all...sucks...but, for what it’s worth...I’m glad you’re with me.”

_You’re only_ in _this mess because of me,_ Iwaizumi thought, but that just felt...cold. Ungrateful.

Like something he would have said in an alley in Vinetown what felt like an age ago.

“I’m glad too, Tooru.”

* * *

 

Iwaizumi lay on his back on the ground, basking in the relief it brought to his aching joints, and listened to the rain drum down on the canvas a few feet above his head.

You had to hand it to Oikawa,  he thought...he really _did_ travel prepared. Iwaizumi had been deeply suspicious of the tiny spiderweb of rope and silk Oikawa claimed was a tent. It barely looked big enough to be a bedroll, but the second the wind shifted, Oikawa had unfolded the little bundle, tossed two ropes over the glider’s intact right wing, and ten minutes of tugging and tying later they had a solid little shelter of silk set up, just in time for the first rain drops to fall. The tent was built around the glider itself, using the wide wing as both a roof and most of the structural support. Plenty of space for the two of them, plenty of protection from the weather, and easy access to the storage in the belly of the glider. Which meant easy access to Oikawa’s little traveling library.

They’d burned through the first book in long fits of cabin fever at the inn, and now Oikawa was well into another one. They were both injured and exhausted and badly in need of sleep, but...the reading felt normal, and right now normal felt _important._

It was all…cozy. Probably. _Cozy_ was one of those meaningless words to Iwaizumi, always described in terms of golden firelight and candles and stars outside dark windows, and who cares what all that looks like? But the steady drumming of the ocean rain sketched out a constant picture in his mind, the body of the glider and their little domed shelter. A safety lantern buzzed under the belly of the aircraft, a soft echo above the rain, and all of it underpinned by Oikawa’s constant, steady heartbeat as he read aloud, completely lost in the world of his book. He had to admit, it was much nicer than the dank, dripping cold of the stone shelter he’d thrown up in the teeth of the storm.

The wind hit their shelter a little harder, howling around the canvas walls, and Iwaizumi shivered at the sound. Fingers of air plucked at the tied-down flap, cold rain piercing the gap in the weatherproof fabric, and Iwaizumi gritted his teeth and knocked his heel against the ground. A small round rock by the glider’s nose flipped up into the air and settled heavily on the loose corner, sealing them off from the weather again.

Iwaizumi bit his lip hard, trying to quell the fear boiling deep in his stomach. He stilled his own shaking breaths, making himself focus on Oikawa’s steady breathing instead. Controlled, steady, both of them rooted to the earth underfoot, not being tossed through the boiling clouds, lost rootless _blind_ helpless to the rushing wind, _I’m gonna have to put it down while I can,_ Oikawa yelling over the cracks of thunder all around them, his voice light and upbeat, _controlled…_

He’d sounded so calm, even after they slammed down on the surface of the tiny island, rough ground and gale force winds trying to kick the tiny glider back into the maelstrom. Poised and in control like he always was but he’d dragged the disoriented Iwaizumi Out of the bucking glider with trembling hands and when he stumbled into Oikawa’s chest he’d felt his heart beating wildly, _hammering_ against his ribs. He’d been _terrified,_ afraid for both their lives and fighting like hell to hide it for the sake of his frightened passenger who was helpless without his feet on the ground. Oikawa paused when the wind howled and settled again, and Iwaizumi heard him shifting restlessly. He spread his fingers against the ground, reassuring himself that Oikawa’s knee was still wrapped and propped up where it should be, to keep the swelling down.

“You okay?” he asked, frowning as Oikawa twisted his shoulders with a faint hiss of breath. “You’re fidgety.”

“Eh? Oh I’m fine, _fine,”_ Oikawa replied brightly, and Iwaizumi swallowed a groan as the pilot’s heart rate jumped.

“ _Liar._ What’s wrong? Your knee better not be bleeding again.” He couldn’t _smell_ any blood from the deep cuts where the broken struts of Oikawa’s knee brace had pierced his skin, but he was also fighting the lamp and the oiled canvas, and (let’s be honest) two grown men in an enclosed space who hadn’t bathed in a couple days.

Oikawa sighed. “My shoulders are just sore, Iwa-chan, I _promise—“_ and his heart spiked again as Iwaizumi set suspicious fingers on his swollen knee, feeling gently for any sign of bleeding.

“You are the _worst_ liar, I swear…” Iwaizumi frowned. His knee really _did_ seem okay, so what was he lying about that had his heart jumping around like that…aw, hell. “Your shoulders aren’t _just_ sore, are they. You were fighting that storm for _ages. C’mere.”_

“Are you my _mom,_ Iwa-chan? It happens to all pilots— _eep!”_ Oikawa squeaked as Iwaizumi sat up on his knees and set both hands on his shoulders, feeling expertly across the muscles of his neck and back.

“ _Just sore?_ Earth and _air_ Kawa, your tendons feel like pebbles on a string. Hold still.” He dug the heel of his hand into the knot of strained muscle under Oikawa’s shoulder blade, and grinned at the relieved humm it got him. “It’ll be easier if you take off your jacket. You and your layering, I swear…” Oikawa hesitated, and Iwaizumi leaned around to grin into his face. “I _already_ know what you look like under your clothes, you know. _Strip.”_ There went his pulse again…he was going to have a coronary at this rate.

He felt the tiny shifts of those ridiculous eyes blinking, and Oikawa set his book aside and meekly removed his jacket and the complicated layering of shirts under it. Iwaizumi hoped the outfit actually looked good, for all the effort he put into it.

“Oh come on, it’s plenty warm with both of us in here,” he snorted, feeling goosebumps ripple across Oikawa’s skin as he settled his hands back on his shoulders. He flicked the back of Oikawa’s head before working his thumbs back down his neck. “Keep reading if you want.  Didn’t you say we’re almost to the end?”

“Yeah, right… _mmmm_ that feels _good_ Iwa-chan…”

Iwaizumi hesitated for a second, a sarcastic reply swallowed by the genuine warmth and gratitude in Oikawa’s voice. He could be _so_ obnoxious, pompous and arrogant and overbearing, but these rare moments when his guard came down cut straight to the bone every time. He slid both hands back to Oikawa’s shoulders and squeezed, just for an instant.

“You saved my life,” he said softly. “I owe you this much at least.”

He heard the rustle of paper as Oikawa set his book aside, and then he leaned his head back against Iwaizumi’s shoulder, soft curls of hair tickling his cheeks as Oikawa turned his head to look up at his face.

“And you saved mine,” Oikawa whispered. “You don’t owe me anything, Hajime.”

He _felt_ Oikawa’s pulse jump, fluttering against his fingers where they rested on Oikawa’s neck…but he _sounded_ so open, so sincere, his heart was racing but he wasn’t lying and come to that Iwaizumi’s pulse was pounding too…

_Hajime…_

Thunder rolled outside, far off and distant but enough to make them both flinch at the memory, and _something_ in the space between them shattered.

“Well if we’re even,” Iwaizumi huffed as Oikawa sat forward again, “then I’ll _trade_ you this back rub for the rest of that story, huh?”

Oikawa laughed, and started reading again, leaning back into Iwaizumi’s hands.

After maybe forty page turns (a final battle won and a homeland reclaimed), Iwaizumi’s hands started to ache and Oikawa’s muscles didn’t feel like knotted rope anymore. He let his hands trail off Oikawa’s shoulders, and didn’t bother to protest when Oikawa leaned back against his chest. It was more comfortable than lying on the ground.

Oikawa’s favorite story ended bittersweet – a hero who had seen too much, whose wounds ran too deep, a past and a happiness that could never really be reclaimed. The story was winding down, and Oikawa’s voice was winding down just as fast. He must have been reading for _hours,_ Iwaizumi realized…it felt like hardly any time at all.

“ _That’s the way it always must be,”_ Oikawa said, shifting into the soft-toned voice he used for the wounded hero. “ _When things are worth fighting for…someone has to give them up, so that others may keep them.”_

A pause for breath turned into a wheezing cough, and Iwaizumi sighed, shaken loose from the story’s grip. “C’mon, Kawa, take a break. We can finish it tomorrow…”

“ _Nooo,_ we can’t stop now, it’s the big goodbye sce-ene—“ he cut himself off coughing again, but not before Iwaizumi caught the choked-up edge in his voice.

“Are you getting _teary?”_ He reached for Oikawa’s face, dodging a feeble attempt to slap him away, and felt the telltale wetness at the corner of Oikawa’s eyes. “Oh my god you _are,_ how many times have you read this book?”

“ _So mean!”_ Oikawa wailed, flailing his hand away. Even without the tears, his voice was cracking.

“O-i-ka-wa Too-ru take a _break,_ you’re gonna turn yourself into a frogfly.” Iwaizumi was still cackling, slapping both hands to the sides of Oikawa’s face and stretching his cheeks to punctuate every syllable of his name. Oikawa yelped, trying to wrestle him off: they’d shifted nose to nose, Iwaizumi practically sitting in his lap and they struggled in the confined space.

“We can’t stop _now,_ we’re so _close_ we can’t just _leave_ it! You’ve gotta know the ending!”

Iwaizumi couldn’t stop laughing, even as Oikawa stretched to keep the book out of his reach. God, he loved that book _so much,_ he still cried at the sad parts after dozens of readings, wrecked his voice every night because he wanted so much for Iwaizumi to know the story too…gaudy and cocky but he gave _everything_ to the things he loved, gave up sweat and blood and breath to his martial training and his books and his glider—

\-- _and me—_

Oikawa had gotten his breath back, apparently expecting a ceasefire as Iwaizumi suddenly froze. “How ‘bout five more pages and then we’ll stop?”

Iwaizumi didn’t hear him, not over the sudden rush of giddy new emotions clouding his head. Oikawa Tooru and his glider and his books and his bright bubbling laugh and his brain that seemed to go firing off in a new direction every five minutes…

Oikawa _cared,_ he cared _so_ much that it bled out into everything he touched. It made him magnetic, made him light up like a beacon in all Iwaizumi’s senses and left him with a pulse pounding spine tingling desire to fight the entire world for ever daring to hurt him.

His hands were still squished against Oikawa’s face, close enough to feel warm breath against his lips and it was lighting up another curious, fluttering desire in the pit of his stomach…it was an echo of the lifeline pull of Oikawa’s hands dragging him from the bucking glider, and of deep, frightened relief he’d felt and sound of Oikawa coughing under the storm shelter, wet and hurt but _here_ and alive...but this wasn’t the sick relief of terror breaking, this was hot and immediate and _happy..._

“Hey. Iwa. Hoy.” Oikawa poked him in the forehead with the hand not marking his place in the book. “Hey, you still in there? You look...glazed…”

Iwaizumi tipped his face up in both hands and kissed him.

He _felt_ the shiver that shot through Oikawa’s body as their lips met, every muscle pulling taught before falling limp. His hands dropped to Iwaizumi’s forearms, squeezing almost hard enough to bruise.

Iwaizumi pulled back at the sting of his grip with a thrill of nerves. Oikawa was breathing hard against him, and Iwaizumi spread his fingers over his face, trying to map out an expression in his wide eyes and parted lips, and say something _say something—_

“Y-yeah?” he stuttered, when the silence had dragged on too long, and it seemed to be enough to startle Oikawa out of his daze. He slid one hand up Iwa’s arm and pressed Iwa’s hand tight against his face, to be sure that he could feel the smile.

“ _Yeah,”_ Oikawa whispered, and squeezed his hand tight as he pulled him in for a second kiss. He felt Oikawa’s smile against his lips, cupping his face and slipping his fingers into his hair. Iwaizumi shivered, hands flexing on Oikawa’s shoulders and he leaned into the kiss. He nipped experimentally at Oikawa’s lower lip, and laughed at the feeling of Oikawa’s heart jumping under his palm.

Oikawa pulled back, tipping his head to one side. “What’re _you_ laughin’ at?”

Iwaizumi shook his head, bringing a hand back to Oikawa’s face to feel his smile, his flushed cheeks and crinkled eyes.

“Y’know, when I first met you I thought you were the world’s biggest liar…”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, your heart beat’s always jumpin’ around like crazy.” Oikawa’s nose wrinkled. Iwaizumi grinned. “I think I’ve figured it out now, though.” He leaned in close, nudging his nose against Oikawa’s. “Your heart speeds up every time you look at me.”

Oikawa squeaked - honest to god _squeaked -_ and hid his face in Iwaizumi’s shoulder. “You wouldn’t laugh if you knew how hot you are,” he grumbled into his collar. He looped his long arms around Iwaizumi’s waist, pulling him closer to curl into his chest.

“Y’don’t say.” Iwaizumi gathered him closer, curling a hand around the back of his head. “Good gods your hair just goes on _forever.”_ He trailed his fingers through the endless silky tufts, and Oikawa relaxed against him, a deep, contented purr rumbling through his chest. “Kawa, you’re so cute.”

Oikawa purred, nuzzling into his neck. “ _Mmm, Iwa,_ that’s nice...your hands are nice…”

Iwaizumi chuckled, nudging his nose into Oikawa’s hair. “ _Nice?”_ he teased. “What happened to all that sweet talking?”

Oikawa grumbled, cheeks flushing warm against Iwaizumi’s skin. His lithe arms tightened around Iwaizumi’s waist and he pressed a lingering, open mouthed kiss to the join of his neck and shoulder. Iwaizumi felt the smile against his skin as his breath hitched.

“Hey...can I ask you something?”

“Hm?” Iwaizumi tipped his head at the serious note in Oikawa’s voice, even though he still kept dropping kisses over Iwaizumi’s skin between every word.

“How...how d’you _know_ I’m cute? If you can’t...I mean...what does ‘cute’ mean to you?”

“Hmm, I wonder…”Iwaizumi hummed, rubbing his cheek against Oikawa’s soft hair, hands wandering down his back. “Turtleducklings are cute, right?”

“Freaking _adorable.”_

“Well.” Iwaizumi chuckled, ruffling Oikawa’s hair again. “You remind me of holding a turtleduckling, when I was a kid. All soft and warm and fluffy…”

“Awww, so sweet Iwa-chan.”

“...not good for much else...”

“ _Mean!”_ Oikawa dug his fingers into Iwa’s ribs, and then followed it up with a hard, biting kiss to the underside of Iwa’s jaw, turning his surprised squeak into a stuttering moan.

Iwaizumi gasped, head falling back of its own accord, baring more of his skin to Oikawa’s lips. Oikawa leaned in eagerly, trailing burning, lingering kisses up the length of his neck. Iwaizumi flattened his palms against Oikawa’s bare back, spreading his fingers across warm, soft skin. Oikawa hummed, deep in his throat, almost deep enough to be a moan, vibrations rumbling against Iwaizumi’s chest and under his hands.

“Iwa…” he whispered, hands dragging heavy trails up Iwaizumi’s sides to his shoulders. “ _Iwa--  
_ he angled his head dropping shaky kisses over Iwa’s face.

“ _K-kawa...mm--”_

Oikawa’s hands on his shoulders pushed gently and Iwaizumi followed the pressure, letting Oikawa lay him back in their little shelter and settle his long body over him. He caught his weight on an elbow and curled a hand gently against Iwaizumi’s face, thumb stroking over his cheekbone. Iwaizumi tilted his head into the touch, smiling against Oikawa’s palm. His pulse thrummed everywhere under his skin, heat pooling in his belly at the feeling of Oikawa’s warm, solid weight pressed against him, he was being so gentle and Iwaizumi wanted _more._ Close as they were he could feel Oikawa still holding something back, unsure, or waiting... He raised his hands to Oikawa’s chest, eyelids fluttering and breath catching as he spread his fingers across soft skin and lean, defined muscles.

“ _Kawa, you feel so...you’re so...ah!”_

The noise Oikawa made was the sound of patience breaking. He cradled Iwa’s face in both his hands, and _kissed_ him like a drowning man reaching air.

Iwaizumi trembled in his arms, all but clinging to him as Oikawa’s tongue brushed his lips and dipped into his mouth. Iwaizumi hesitated for a moment before he parted his lips, doing his best to follow Oikawa’s lead. He’d never been touched like this before, never been _kissed_ like this, never gone so far out of his depth so fast and his head was whirling, spinning as hard as it had when the glider first left the ground, it was terrifying but it all felt _right..._

“Gods,” Oikawa whispered in his ear, half laughing and half gasping. “You’re so sensitive.”

His teeth grazed over Iwa’s pulse point, and then his lips moved lower, catching at the collar of Iwa’s jacket and tugging it aside.

“ _Mmmmmm,_ it’s...i-i-i-it’s--” Iwaizumi lost track of the words as Oikawa’s lips traced over his collarbone. “It’s a-all kind of...kind of _n-new…”_

Oikawa’s throaty chuckle at his stuttering cut off in a sudden squeak, and his warm weight disappeared from Iwaizumi’s chest.

“Kawa?” Iwaizumi propped himself up on an elbow, reaching up to feel Oikawa’s expression.

“ _New?”_ Oikawa squeaked, head bumping the wing above them. “This is your fi-first...first…”

“Pretty much everything,” Iwaizumi confirmed. He ran his thumb over Oikawa’s cheekbone, and grinned at the blazing heat of his blush. “I’ve been kissed before. Uh.” He wrinkled his nose. “Once.”

“You didn’t _tell_ me!” Oikawa wailed, sitting back on his heels.

“I didn’t really give you a chance to _ask,”_ Iwaizumi laughed. He sat up, tangling his fingers in Oikawa’s hair and trying to pull him close again.

Oikawa mumbled, pressing his face into Iwa’s neck. “I didn’t push too much, did I?”

Iwaizumi laughed softly, dipping his head to nuzzle into Oikawa’s hair...he could feel himself getting _addicted_ to Oikawa’s hair. “You didn’t push me, Tooru.” Oikawa hugged him tighter, still hiding his his shoulder. Iwaizumi smiled, curling both hands protectively around his head. “You really are sweet, aren’t you, Oikawa Tooru. Under all that arrogance…”

“‘S not arrogance if I’m really that good,” Oikawa mumbled. Iwaizumi flicked his ear.

“ _Eep! Ow!”_

“Dork,” Iwaizumi grumbled.

Oikawa leaned up and pressed a long, deep kiss to Iwaizumi’s lips. His affection settled in a blanket of warmth under Iwaizumi’s skin, gentle and all encompassing and undemanding.

“Thank you,” he whispered, his voice a little choked. Iwaizumi’s curious fingers found a trace of wetness at the corner of his eyes.

“What for? Callin’ ‘you an idiot?” Iwaizumi asked, and Oikawa shivered and hid in his chest again.

_It’s not arrogance if you’re really that good,_ Iwaizumi thought. _And if you’re really that good...who cares what else you are?_

The way he talked about his beloved glider, the way his entire body lit with animation at the chance to share his books with someone. The way his heart skipped and his movements stuttered with surprise every time Iwaizumi asked something about _him…_

_You’re a pilot, and you’re pretty, and that’s all anyone’s ever wanted you to be. Warm and fuzzy and not good for much else..._ Iwaizumi’s heart squeezed with a sick sting of guilt, and he gathered Oikawa’s lanky form closer to his chest. _Oh Tooru…_

No wonder he felt so fragile in Iwaizumi’s arms.

Iwaizumi lost track of how long they stayed that way, holding each other as the rain hammered down on the glider’s canvas body. Eventually, the faint, silent tremors through Oikawa’s shoulders wound down, and he rubbed his cheek a little apologetically against the damp patch on Iwa’s shoulder.

Iwaizumi yawned hugely. “I don’t know about you, but I’m _exhausted.”_ Oikawa leaned his head on his shoulder and hummed in agreement.

They both considered their bedrolls. The warm, comfortable, _one person_ bedrolls. Iwaizumi’s arms tightened reflexively around Oikawa’s waist. He didn’t want to let go yet…

“Got an idea,” Oikawa announced. “Scoot.”

He nudged Iwaizumi back off the roll under them and started unpicking the lacings down the center. Iwaizumi traced the motion of his hands for a minute before he got the idea, and went to work unlacing the other bedroll.

They unfolded both rolls out into thick blankets and lay them one on top of the other. Oikawa started on one side and Iwaizumi on the other, lacing them back together into a single, queen-sized bedroll. It only took Iwaizumi a moment to find the rhythm of it, feeling out each grommet ahead of the lace in his other hand.

He became aware that Oikawa had fallen still, his eyes trained on Iwaizumi. He sat back on his heels and murmured something too quiet for even Iwaizumi’s ear’s to catch.

“Hm?”

“Mesmerizing…” Oikawa whispered. “You’re _mesmerizing.”_

Iwaizumi arched an eyebrow. “Because I can do something simple just like a normal _seeing_ person?”

Oikawa shifted uncomfortably, eyes dropping away. “Yeah, okay, point taken. It’s not _just_ that thought...it’s...the way your hands move, those long fingers of yours, and your _arms…”_

Iwaizumi sat back and flexed his arms casually, and grinned at the spike in Oikawa’s heartbeat. “C’mere, you idiot.”

There was a clink and hiss as Oikawa killed the lantern, and they felt their way into the combined bedroll. A long arm snaked around Iwaizumi’s shoulders, and he rolled close and nuzzled into Oikawa’s chest. The rain overhead drummed loud in the sudden silence between them.

“Hey.” Oikawa’s arm squeezed around him. “I’m sorry. I’m kind of guaranteed to be an idiot about you...about the..the _seeing_ thing…”

Iwaizumi laughed softly and pressed a kiss to the warm skin under his cheek. “Stop worrying and go to sleep, Tooru.” Oikawa hugged him close, lips brushing his forehead.

Iwaizumi drifted easily to sleep, the sound of the rain mixing with the gentle thrum of Oikawa’s heart against his skin.

* * *

 

A stab of pain from his knee jolted Oikawa awake in a shivery panic, disoriented and sweaty. The still air under the glider was faintly blue with pre-dawn light, and wet and humid from the passing storm. His knee _throbbed,_ dull pulsing pain running up and down his leg and Oikawa gritted his teeth around a whimper.

A rustle close to his ear pulled Oikawa’s eyes open again. He blinked at the shape in front of him, mind pulling free from sleep and confusion and the mind-numbing pulse of the pain.

Iwaizumi shifted and mumbled in his sleep, burrowing into the crook of his elbow. Oikawa pushed himself up on one arm, his throbbing knee fading to the back of his mind as he watched Iwaizumi sleep, faint gray light catching on his cheekbones and the soft curves of his handsome face.

A wave of deep contentment washed over him, settling deep in his chest with the sparks of attraction and affection he always felt when he looked at Iwa. Oikawa pressed close to Iwa’s back, brushing his lips over soft, sleep-warm skin.

“Iwa-chan?”

“ _Mmfmffzl?”_

Oikawa kissed his neck again, throwing an arm over Iwa’s waist and pulling him back into his chest.

“Iwa-chan is so pretty when he’s asleep--”

“ _MmfffzllmFFF,”_ Iwaizumi replied emphatically, and flopped an entire hand over Oikawa’s face. Oikawa squeaked as Iwaizumi shoved his head back down. His arm dropped back to his side, and he was apparently dead to the world again in seconds.

“ _Hang me for being romantic,”_ Oikawa grumbled. He curled himself around Iwa’s warm, solid form and obediently let himself drift back to sleep.


	5. Safe

The second time Oikawa woke up, it was to a draft on his chest, and blazing ocean sunlight filtering through the flap. The tent under the glider was full of the sounds of crashing surf and raucous bird calls--

“-- _kawa--”_

And a voice calling his name.

“ _Kawa! O-i-ka-wa Too-ru c’mere!”_

Oikawa sat up, squinting sleepily against the glare of sunlight as Iwaizumi shoved the tent flap aside.

“Kawa, c’mere! How long’re you gonna _sleep?”_ Iwaizumi was breathless and grinning, leaning into the tent and tugging Oikawa’s arm like a kid on a holiday morning. “C’mon, I wanna show you something!”

“ _Now_ you’re wide awake,” Oikawa grumbled, flopping out of the bedroll. He tested his knee gingerly against the makeshift wrappings, and hobbled out into the sun.

The bank of storms was finally past, just a faint gray smudge on the eastern horizon, and the little island glittered like a jewel, fixed between the sapphire ocean and the cloudless sky. A flight of parrots took off from the trees, startling harsh calls out of the fat white gulls bobbing on the surf. Sun glimmered on emerald wings as the flight banked overhead and dipped back into the lush, rustling canopy.

The spectacle was entirely lost on Oikawa. All he saw was Iwaizumi.

He’d stripped to the waist, a thin sheen of sweat clinging to his dark skin. The drying sand around their camp was a mess of footprints and scattered and cracked stones, and Iwa was panting lightly. He’d been exercising.

Oikawa closed the distance between them silently, his heart too full to speak. He wrapped his arms around Iwa’s waist and bent to press his face into the back of Iwa’s shoulder. Iwa hummed and melted back against his chest, nuzzling his nose against Oikawa’s temple.

“Hi.”

“I was a little afraid it was a dream,” Oikawa mumbled into his warm skin.

“Aww…” Iwa turned in his arms, reaching up to loop his arms around Oikawa’s neck with that soft half-smile. “No dream, Tooru, I promise. Hey, no hiding…” he nudged his nose against the sides of Oikawa’s face, trying to nuzzle him out of his shoulder.  “C’mon, I wanna show you something.” He pulled Oikawa’s arm over his shoulder, settling firm and solid against his side, and tugged him down the beach.

“Here. Stay. An’ close your eyes.”

“Close…?”

“It’s a _surprise._ What, don’t trust me?” Iwa grinned.

Oikawa knew it was a joke, but it still stung, just a little, in the part of his heart still raw and frightened from the crash. “You know I do,” he answered softly.

Iwa must have caught the sting in his voice, because his face softened, and he leaned up to brush his lips against Oikawa’s, combing his fingers through his hair.

“Close your eyes,” he repeated against Oikawa’s lips. “It’ll be worth it.”

Oikawa squinted suspiciously at Iwa’s grin. “If this surprise in any way involves bugs or fish I will _leave_ you here when my knee gets better,” he grumbled, shutting his eyes tight.

He tried to track Iwa’s footsteps but he lost him under the sound of surf and wind, and the parrots chattering in the trees at the island’s center. Iwa wasn’t gone more than a few minutes in any case, crunching back up the beach with what sounded like a spring in his step.

“Hold out your hands,” Iwa said, and laughed when Oikawa wrinkled his nose. “No fish, no bugs, I swear. Hold out your hands, c’mon. Closer than that.”

He heard Iwa take a few steps closer, and something warm and fuzzy tipped into his cupped hands.

It wiggled.

“ _Ohmygod,”_ Oikawa squeaked. His eyes flew open, and the little creature in his hands sat up and surveyed him with bright oil drop eyes. “Oh my _god_ what are they?”

“No idea,” Iwa said, laughing at his delight. He had two more of the little animals on each shoulder, and a third perched on his head. “They’re friendly as hell, though. There’s a cave full of ‘em up the beach. I don’t think they’ve ever seen humans before.”

Oikawa held the fuzzy little creature up to eye level. It had a long body, not unlike a fire ferrets, but more compact, and covered in dense, waterproof brown fur. It sat forward as he lifted it bracing webbed paws on his wrist, and Oikawa realized what he’d taken for  blubber or baby fat was a furry membrane of skin that stretched between fore and hind limbs.

“Gods. Squirrelotters.” The animal on Iwa’s head jumped clumsily, spreading her limbs and gliding to Oikawa’s chest. Her flat, bristly tail windmilled in the air for a second, steering before sharp claws anchored her to his jacket. “Flying squirrelotters. I’ve only ever seen them in pictures!”

“They’re babies, aren’t they?” Iwa asked. The rest of the litter had found them, about a dozen of the little brown and yellow creatures sniffing around their feet. “No wonder they’re not shy...I hope they’re not orphaned.”

“I think the mothers go out to the deep sea to fish after they den,” Oikawa said, giggling as inquisitive whiskers tickled his cheeks. “Or maybe she’s just shy.”

“They’re denned by a stream,” Iwa said, plucking a few intrepid climbers off his chest and setting them gently on the ground. “I think there’s a pool up in the trees, but I haven’t been to look yet. Think you can…?” he gestured to Oikawa’s wrapped knee.

“If there’s a chance I can wash my hair I will _find_ a way,” Oikawa declared. “Plus, if this place attracted squirrelotters, I bet there’s fish.”

* * *

 

Oikawa floated on his back in the center of a deep pool, humming to himself in bliss. Rustles of wind and leaves and the occasional splash of a diving squirrelotter filtered through the water, pleasantly distant and detached.

A loud splash and a patter of droplets on his face disturbed his tranquility. Oikawa wrinkled his nose and ignored another, closer splash, sculling lazily away from the bank.

A big wet mud ball dropped straight into his stomach. Oikawa went under with an undiginified squash and a loud splash, breath leaving him in a stream of bubbles. He flailed his way into shallower water and surfaced to Iwa’s laughter.

“ _What,”_ he snapped, shoving his dripping hair out of his eyes.

“Shhh,” Iwa hissed, still giggling. “C’mere.”

Curiosity piqued, Oikawa paddled his way over to Iwa, sitting on the bank with his feet dangling in the shallows,

“What’s up?”

“Look.” Iwa grinned, eyes sparkling, and pointed to a push overhanging the bank.

“I don’t see anything.”

“Underneath”

Iwa reached into the bag next to him for a piece of the dried fish he’d been snacking on, and tossed it gently towards the bush. Oikawa muffled a giggle as a webbed brown paw shot out and snagged the fish. “Is that…?”

“Mama squirrelotter,” Iwa whispered, smiling ear to ear. He tossed another piece of fish jerky, a little further out from her shelter. This time there was a flash of brown and white muzzle as the squirrelotter darted out of her hiding spot to snag the treat. She was cute, sure, but Oikawa couldn’t tear his eyes away from Iwa’s smile.

He shifted closer, leaning into Iwa’s side. Iwa hummed at the brush of skin on skin and melted against him, not minding Oikawa’s dampness. “Hi there.”

“You’re pretty, you know that?” Oikawa mumbled, nuzzling against Iwa’s neck.

“I’m _happy,”_ Iwa whispered, leaning his cheek on Oikawa’s head. He laughed softly. “Maybe it’s just the survival rush talking but...I’m really kinda stupid happy.”

“Yeah?”

“ _Yeah.”_ Iwa brushed Oikawa’s damp hair off his forehead, fingertips rough and warm against his chilled skin. He hesitated for a moment, his misty eyes skating over Oikawa’s face, and then he leaned in and pressed a fleeting brush of a kiss to his temple.

Oikawa  hummed, a delicious shiver tingling down his spine and twisted around, leaning up to catch Iwa’s lips with his...and stopped himself.

 _I’ve been kissed before...once…_ this wasn’t one of his pleasant stopover flings with a friendly girl who only knew his family name. This was Iwa, and he had to be careful.

“Hey...Iwa, can I kiss you?” he asked softly, like they were sharing a secret. Iwa shivered, leaning his forehead against Oikawa’s with a sigh.

“Please?” he whispered, and Oikawa instantly forgot his own rule about being careful. He surged forward, catching Iwa’s lips in a deep, hard kiss. Iwa gasped, but a second later he was smiling into it, his hands coming up to cup around Oikawa’s face. Oikawa remembered himself and eased up, tracing his fingers lightly over the back of Iwa’s powerful hands delicately holding his face.

There was something almost unbearably sweet about the way he kissed, gentle and uncertain, like he was afraid Oikawa would break if he pushed too hard. Oikawa hummed and nipped at his lip, coaxing his mouth open to kiss him deeper, and Iwa shivered, winding an arm around Oikawa’s waist to pull him closer. Oikawa’s fingers clenched in his shirt as his breath caught, giddy tingles coalescing in his stomach and becoming something different, something hotter and darker and harder-edged. Iwa was losing his shyness, forgetting to hold back his strength as his hands roamed over Oikawa’s skin, his touch felt electric and it was driving Oikawa more than a little crazy _\--_

He swung one leg over Iwa’s lap, straddling his thighs, felt Iwa shiver against him at the change, his hands settling on  Oikawa’s hips, fingers flexing---and a spike of pain shot up his leg as too much weight hit his forgotten knee. Oikawa dropped back to his heels with a strangled curse, gritting his teeth against the pain.

“Ah hell, you okay?” Iwa pulled back in an instant, his warm fingers spread over his knee, feeling carefully for any new damage.

‘“Y-yeah, just... _ow…”_ Oikawa sighed and scrubbed a hand over his face, straightening his knee with a groan. He sighed heavily, letting his head fall back. And froze.

“Hey...uh...Iwa...we’ve got an audience.”

“Hm?” Iwa tipped his head and pressed his hands to the ground, and snorted as he picked up what Oikawa was seeing. The far bank of the pool was lined with squirrelotters, watching them with the rapt attention of a spellbound symphony audience.

“You’d think they’d never seen two humans trying to eat each other’s faces before.”

“Aww, Iwa-chan, you weren’t _that_ bad... _ow…_ ”

“Get your knee back in the water before it swells,” Iwa grumbled, flicking his other ear for good measure. “I’ll go get the med kit. Your knee needs re-wrapping anyway.”

“Get the fishing stuff too! There’s tons of ‘em out by that big log. I’m sick of jerky.”

“Kay, where is it?”

“Should be in the same bin as the kit. Brown leather, like this big--”

“Try again,” Iwa interrupted, smirking.

“Oo. Right.” Oikawa wrinkled his nose. “Uh...leather tube? The material feels about the same as the glider seats. It’s like...as big around as your wrist, three feet long.?”

“Right. I can find that. I’ll be back” Iwa hopped to his feet, and stabbed a finger in Oikawa’s direction. “And soak your knee!”

“ _Yes_ mother.”

Iwa headed off through the trees, and Oikawa lowered his throbbing knee into the cool water, groaning as he straightened it gingerly. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d just plain _forgotten_ about it like that. He was _used_ to it, the tight tense pain and the rubbing of the brace, but it was always _there,_ a constant presence in the back of his mind.

Until Iwaizumi Hajime pushed all that right out of his head.

Oikawa leaned back on his elbows and shut his eyes, listening to the chattering of playing squirrelotters, diving out of the trees and into the water. He didn’t really know _what_ to make of that little epiphany.

Oikawa drifted in and out of a doze as the cool water leached the pain from his knee and his hair and skin slowly dried in the sun. On the far side of the pool, the baby squirrelotters took turns to race up a tall palm at the water’s edge and launch themselves from the canopy, gliding over the deepest water, where they’d fold in their limbs and dive, elegant and quiet. Some of the bigger, nimbler ones surfaced with wriggling silver fish speared on their sharp little teeth.

An unexpected nudge against his hand nearly made Oikawa jump out of his skin. He jerked out of a doze with an undignified yelp, and something skittered away in a burst of chattering.

Oikawa sat up straighter and found one of the squirrelotters watching him cautiously from a nearby rock, half hiding behind a thick, flat tail. The newcomer was smaller than most of the other babies, with the mottled fur and yellowish underbelly that Oikawa was willing to bet meant female. He realized she must have been investigating the bag of dried fish sitting next to him on the bank.

“Hello,” Oikawa said softly. Moving slowly so as not to spook her, he pulled out a fish strip and held it out. The little animal hesitated for a moment, and then darted forward to snatch it from his fingers. She didn’t bother to retreat before tearing into it with the sharp little fangs that protruded slightly over her lower jaw.

“You’re not playing with everyone else?” Oikawa said, as she stuffed the last of the fish into her cheeks and began licking flakes off her paws. She hopped closer, sniffing his fingers, and he saw that one of her hind legs was twisted, whether from birth or an injury he couldn’t say. She kept her weight off of it, hopping a little awkwardly on three paws as she crept onto his hand for another piece of fish. She looked thin, especially for a baby, ribs standing out under her glossy coat.

“Oh...that leg doesn’t work so well, huh?” His new friend sat up and watched him with bright black eyes, head tipped to one side as she ate. He couldn’t shake the feeling she was listening. The squirrelotter finished her fish...and then cocked her head and hopped down his leg to sniff curiously over the bandages. She turned her head, poking a forepaw over her own bad leg, and then looked back up at him. “O-oh.” Oikawa smiled weakly at her bright, questioning gaze. “Yeah, me too.”

 

* * *

 

When Iwa returned to the pool, med kit under one arm and the tube holding Oikawa’s fishing gear over his shoulder, it was to a loud splash, and the sound of Oikawa’s delighted laughter.

“What. In the name of sanity. Are you _doing?”_ he asked mildly, leaning against a tree as he unslung the fishing gear. “Besides scaring all the fish.”

“Finally getting some use out of that flight instructor training,” Oikawa giggled. His little yellow-bellied friend burst out onto the bank, shaking water everywhere, and scampered eagerly into his lap. Oikawa scooped her up and wound his arm back, tossing her in a high, gentle arc out over the pool. Iwa snorted as she hit the water in a splashy dive, and ran back to Oikawa for another toss.

“Making friends, I see,” he remarked, settling himself at Oikawa’s side as the little squirrelotter went flying again. He tapped Oikawa’s leg gently. “Lemme see your knee.”

Oikawa obediently rotated in place and slung both long legs across Iwa’s lap, splashing them both with pond water. Iwa shook his head with a long-suffering sigh. A few feet down the bank, Oikawa’s little friend popped out and shook vigorously, spraying her napping mother. The adult squirelotter cracked one eye, and heaved a sigh of her own.

“Doesn’t feel _too_ swollen,” Iwa mumbled, gently prodding at Oikawa’s livid purple knee. He scraped both hands through his spikey hair, worrying his lower lip between his teeth. “Gods, you need a real healer, not me…” the guilt in his voice made Oikawa’s heart twist.

“It’s fine, Iwa. It feels a lot better, I swear.” He touched the back of Iwa’s hand with a fingertip, and Iwa paused for a second in wrapping his knee, a shiver running down his spine. “Give it a few days and I’ll be set to fly again.”

“I just don’t like knowing you’re in pain,” Iwa mumbled, retying the bandage and tucking in the ends. “How’s that feel?”

In truth, his knee still kind of hurt like hell, but Oikawa was much more focused on the warmth of Iwa’s palm, lingering on his bare leg above the bandage.

“Feels nice, Iwa-chan,” he said, voice dropping low and breathy as he settled his own hand over Iwa’s.

Iwa’s eyebrows shot up in surprise, and then he grinned, cheeks dusted pink under his tan.

“Yeah?” he drew his fingertips slowly up the inside of Oikawa’s thigh, his soft fingertips leaving tingling trails in their wake, and Oikawa shivered in his lap, dropping his head to Iwa’s shoulder and draping his arms around his waist.

“F-feels _really_ n-nice…” he couldn’t rein in the tremor in his voice even though Iwa was barely touching him. He was more than used to this kind of thing, but something about Iwa smashed right through his defenses. His smile and his shy kisses and his deep laugh, and Oikawa’s given name on his lips, two syllables enough to leave his head ringing all night, unable to think about anything else but the way his name sounded in that voice, _Tooru Tooru Tooru..._

Iwa’s breath came faster, warm against Oikawa’s cheeks, and his blush darkened, his expression adorably intense with concentration. He flattened his palm over Oikawa’s skin, sliding higher to tease his fingers under the lower hem of Oikawa’s shorts. Oikawa shuddered, moaning low in his chest at the heavy thrill of arousal that shot down his spine, hips rocking up in response.

Iwa gasped and jerked his hand back, ears burning. Oikawa’s eyes flew open, but before he could react Iwa was pushing his legs off his lap (still careful and gentle with his injured knee) and turning away.

“Iwa?” Oikawa couldn’t keep the confusion (and a little hurt) out of his voice.

Iwa hid his face in his hands, curled in on himself with his elbows propped on his knees.

“What’re we _doing,_ ‘Kawa?” he mumbled into his palms.

“Iwa what’s wrong?” Oikawa reached out to touch him, but thought better of it, settling for just edging closer.

“I feel _crazy,”_ Iwa whispered, shaking his head. “I’ve known you...what, five days? I barely know anything about you, I shouldn’t feel...you shouldn’t make me so…” his fingers raked through his hair again. “What are we _doing?_ How do we know this is...this is _real,_ not just us being beat up and scared?”

Oikawa tipped his head, and raised one shoulder in a slow shrug.

“We don’t.” Iwa let out a harsh, ragged breath, but Oikawa continued before he could say anything. “But so what? It’s a few kisses, Iwa-chan, not a vow of marriage.”

Iwa’s head stayed down, lower lip caught between his teeth. This time Oikawa did reach for him, and Iwa didn’t resist when he tugged a hand away from his face and gently tangled their fingers together.

“I’ll tell you what I _do_ know. I know you’re kind, and beautiful, and you care way too much about everyone, and you’re just as weird as I am and you make me laugh...and I’d really, _really_ like to have the chance to make you feel good.”

Iwa was silent for a long, long moment, his face unreadable and still. Then, he lifted their entwined hands and pressed a lingering kiss to the back of Oikawa’s.

“Thanks, Tooru.”

Oikawa beamed and scooted closer, letting Iwa cuddle into his side.

“Sorry I freaked out on you…” Iwa said, leaning his head on Oikawa’s shoulder. “My head’s kind of a mess.”

Oikawa nuzzled into his hair, squeezing his hand. “S’okay, I don’t blame you.”

“S-so, uh…” the tips of Iwa’s ears were turning pink again. “What all’s involved in ‘making me feel good?’”

Oikawa hummed happily. “Whatever you want! And _only_ what you want.”

Thoughtful silence descended. Oikawa was very aware of his cheeks and ears (and other locations) heating up as well.

“So, like…” Iwa began, before his own stomach interrupted him with a resounding growl.

The mood shattered.

“Coming up with some dinner, maybe?” Oikawa giggled.

“ _Apparently,”_ Iwa grumbled, his ears glowing. He sat up and elbowed Oikawa in the ribs, eliciting a shriek that sent squirrelotters diving for cover. “Are you gonna amaze me with your fishing prowess?”

* * *

  
“Alright, I’m duly impressed,” Iwa admitted an hour later, leaning on Oikawa’s shoulder as a pair of fat silver shiners sizzled in a pan over the fire. The fish lurking in the deepest part of the pool were well used to the threat of diving squirrelotters, but they’d never seen a fish book before, and Oikawa had been hauling them out of the water almost as fast as he could bait the hook.

Oikawa hummed contentedly, flipping both fish with the flat of his knife. His knee still throbbed and his glider was fucked and they were stranded who knew how far from _anywhere..._ but right there, in that moment, with the scent of frying fish in the air and Iwa’s head resting on his shoulder, Oikawa wouldn’t have traded it for anything.

They ate in comfortable (and ravenous) silence, still leaning on each other with their legs tangled together in the sand. The squirrelotter tribe followed the scent of frying fish out of the tree line, and made a noisy meal out of the bones and entrails. Even their mother came closer this time, and deigned to cautiously take a strip of jerky from Iwa’s outstretched fingers, keeping one eye carefully fixed on the two humans as she ate.

“We were supposed to be at the Air Temple two days ago,” Iwa said softly, his misty eyes gazing up at the darkening sky. “...do you think anyone’s looking for us?”

“They probably figured we got forced down by the storm,” Oikawa said with a frown. “Won’t be too long before someone radios the stopover inn, though, and finds out we left…” he sighed and shrugged one shoulder. “Anyone’s guess, really.”

“My mom’s probably losing her mind…” Iwa sighed himself, rubbing his cheek against Oikawa’s shoulder. “I wish I had a way to let her know I’m okay. Thanks to you.”

“Thanks to _you.”_ Oikawa found his hand and tangled their fingers together, and Iwa hummed softly, squeezing his hand.

“It’s so _quiet_ out here...no lamps, no boats…”

“Mmmm...the stars are incredible too.” Oikawa settled back on his elbows in the sand, staring up at the brightening stars. “I can see half the spirits already.”

Iwa cocked his head, settling back beside him, their hands still joined. “The spirits? In the sky?”

“You ever heard of constellations?” Oikawa asked. “Pictures in the stars? A lot of the ancient cultures had their own. The Air Nomads were some of the first to chart the stars, to help with navigation when they flew.”

Iwa’s brow furrowed. “I thought stars were just...just dots. Little bright spots up in the sky. They make pictures?”

“Well...it takes some imagination…” Oikawa thought for a moment, chewing on his lower lip. Inspiration struck, and he bounced up and swept his hand across a patch of damp sand, leaving a smooth surface. “Here, feel.” He poked his finger into the sand, in a loose curve with a loop at the end. “This is one of my favorites, the Sun Dragon…” Iwa sat up, curious, and let Oikawa guide his fingers over the points in the sand. “See, this is her tail, her body - she’s got ridges on her back, these are the points, feel? And then her head…”

Iwa shut his eyes in concentration, slowly tracing the shape, sketching faint lines between the “stars” marked in the sand. Oikawa saw it in his face the moment the image clicked in his mind, felt his heart flutter as Iwa’s face lit with understanding. “Yeah, yeah, I get it!”

“They call her the Sun Dragon because her nose points east. Waiting for the sun to rise.” Oikawa caught Iwa’s hand in his again, and with their fingers he swept a long arc out from the dragon’s nose and poked another dot in the sand. “And _this_ is her egg. Always right on the horizon in the summer. The Sun Dragon sets in the winter, her son the Moon Dragon takes her place. I’ve always thought it was comforting…” he smiled from the dragon sketched into the sand to the real one strung out in the stars over their heads, facing the dark horizon. “No matter where you are in the world, they’re always there. They’ll always guide you home.” He laughed softly to himself. “I used to talk to them, when I was little, and lonely, or scared...ask them to make sure Mom got home okay…”

Lost in thought, he started a little when Iwa’s fingertips brushed his cheek. Iwa cupped his hand against his jaw, thumb brushing gently over the corner of Oikawa’s mouth, feeling the curve of his smile...and then he turned Oikawa’s head and tugged him down into a slow, sweet kiss, warm and certain and their earlier shaky urgency swept away.

Oikawa melted against him, eyes fluttering shut as Iwa’s strong arms wrapped around him. For a second he felt like a terrified teenager again, spine too stiff and no idea what to do with his hands...until Iwa tilted his head to kiss him deeper, calloused palm tracing a long, slow sweep up Oikawa’s bare back and driving the moment of nervousness away. He draped his arms over Iwa’s shoulders and snuggled close, licking into Iwa’s mouth, and Iwa moaned softly, deep in his throat, nails digging crescents into Oikawa’s shoulders for an electric, stinging second. He dropped both hands to Oikawa’s hips and pulled him into his lap, one hand sliding down his thigh to gently cradle his knee. His rough fingertips brushed tenderly over the sensitive skin just below the bandages and Oikawa squirmed in his lap, humming into their kiss.

He felt Iwa pause for a second at the slight, strangled sound, and then he smiled against Oikawa’s lips and repeated his new trick, dragging his calloused fingers in lazy, teasing circles over the inside of Oikawa’s knee. The sensation was _just_ shy of tickling and it had Oikawa’s breath hitching in his throat, whining and squirming at the teasing sparkles shooting up his spine. He _felt_ Iwa’s mostly silent laugh, a deep rumble where their chests pressed together, and broke away to hide in his shoulder, pouting.

“No _fair,_ Iwa-chan.”

Iwa laughed aloud, nuzzling his nose into Oikawa’s hair. “‘S’your fault. You’re too cute when you get all squeaky and wriggly. Turtleduckling.”

“Hey…” Oikawa sat back and braced both hands on Iwa’s shoulders. Iwa’s brow furrowed ( _cute_ ) at his sudden seriousness, raising a hand to Oikawa’s face to feel his expression. “Is this too much? Or too...too fast? I don’t want to...push too much…”

Iwa looked relieved. He cupped his palm gently against Oikawa’s cheek, fingertips rubbing lightly at his temple. “It’s...it’s fast, yeah, but it’s not...it’s not too fast. I kept trying to talk myself out of it, o-or convince myself I shouldn’t, but…” He sighed, soft and shaky, letting his forehead press against Oikawa’s. “I want this, ‘Kawa. _Gods_ I do.”

Oikawa rested his hand over Iwa’s and turned his head to press a lingering kiss against his palm. Iwa shivered, and Oikawa smiled to himself and let his lips slide lower, tracing his tongue over the tendons and veins under the delicate skin inside Iwa’s wrist.

“ _K-kawa--”_ Iwa stuttered, his free arm wrapping tight around Oikawa’s waist, breath coming fast and light as Oikawa kissed and licked his way up the sensitive inside of his arm. Oikawa felt him growing hard, searing heat pressed against the underside of his thigh, _so sensitive, so_ pretty, _my Iwa-chan,_ and he rocked in Iwa’s lap, trying to encourage his hitching hips.

Iwa pulled his arm free and caught Oikawa’s chin, pulling him into a heavy, _hungry_ kiss he flattened his other hand low across Oikawa’s belly, fingers teasing at the waist of his shorts and now it was Oikaw squirming and gasping against his lips.

“K-kawa, _Tooru,”_ Iwa whispered, sliding his hand around the back of his head, gentle and protective. “Tooru, I...I want…”

Oikawa kissed him, quick and probably too hard, nodding as he pulled away.

“Okay...okay, I…” he shook his head to clear it, and caught Iwa’s hand where it was wandering experimentally lower. “Okay, sorry just--hang on a second…” he took a few deep breaths, and set his hands back on Iwa’s shoulders. “I know you’re new to this but, you know the...the mechanics, right?”

“I know where babies come from, ‘Kawa,” Iwa said with a faint smirk, although the tips of his ears flushed pink.

“Yeah, okay, but...for two guys…” Oikawa looked imploringly up at the heavens for a moment, trying to wrap his tongue around the words. “You get how...you know what the options are?”

“ _Oh!”_ Enlightenment dawned on Iwa’s face, and Oikawa heaved an internal sigh of relief. “Well I uh...I don’t know how accurate Makki’s record collection is…”

“Record...collection…”

“Y’know.” Iwa smirked. “The radio plays that only come on after sundown that ‘young men of quality’ aren’t supposed to know about.”

Oikawa snorted. “Okay, that’s a start.”

“I hope they’re _not_ too accurate,” Iwa said, with a wry smile. “They never sounded that appealing to me...especially not with someone stirring a bowl of cold pasta in the background the whole time…”

“Cold pas--” Oikawa blinked. “Holy shit, is _that_ what the sound effects are? Did you just ruin porn for me, Iwa-chan?”

“Cold pasta,” Iwa confirmed. “We performed experiments.”

“Can we change the subject before this conversation gets even _less_ sexy?” Oikawa groaned, rubbing his forehead against Iwa’s shoulder. “Okay, you know the mechanics...any limits I should know about? Anything you absolutely _don’t_ want?”

Iwa was quiet long enough for the first flutterings of panic to creep in around the edges of Oikawa’s mind.

“Ah, hell, Tooru…”  he laughed softly and cupped Oikawa’s face in both his hands, nuzzling their noses together. “Truth is, I could never really imagine wanting _any_ of it…’til I imagined doin’ it with you.”

The blush was instantaneous and all-consuming. “ _Iwaaaaaa,”_ Oikawa whined, pulling back and squishing Iwa’s cheeks. “You can’t just _say_ stuff like that...you stupid romantic jerk--”

Iwa laughed and cut him off with a long, warm kiss, slipping an arm carefully under Oikawa’s knees. He tugged Oikawa’s arm firmly over his shoulders...and then stood, holding Oikawa cradled against his chest without apparent effort.

Oikawa squeaked, clinging to Iwa’s broad shoulders as he was carried back to the glider. Iwa ducked into the little tent under the wing, and lowered Oikawa to their combined bedroll with a tenderness that made his heart flutter. Oikawa wound his arms around Iwa’s neck, letting Iwa lay him back and settle over him, catching his weight on one elbow.

“You’re uh…” Iwa hesitated, some of his earlier fear back in his face as he  traced a fingertip across Oikawa’s cheekbone. “You’re gonna have to talk me through this…”

“Take it as it comes, right?” Oikawa whispered. He laced their fingers together, and tugged Iwa down for a kiss.

They kissed slow and lazy, settling onto their sides so Oikawa could keep the weight of his knee. Oikawa let him explore, scratching his fingers soothingly through Iwa’s hair or running his fingers idly (and appreciatively) over Iwa’s flexing muscles. He hummed his approval as Iwa grew gradually braver, hands wandering over his body and leaving tingling trails in their wake. His warm palms ran sweet and gentle down Oikawa’s back, and, after a second’s hesitation, over the swell of his ass.

Oikawa gasped against Iwa’s lips, a delicious shiver shaking through his spine. He let his hips rock forward, nudging his thigh between Iwa’s as he licked into his mouth. Iwa groaned softly, pressing closer and taking Oikawa’s invitation to grind along his thigh. Oikawa pulled them tighter together, smoothing his palms over Iwa’s tense back, trying to rub relaxation into his bunched muscles.

“Good?” he asked, breaking their kiss to nuzzle Iwa’s temple. Iwa nodded and buried his face in Oikawa’s shoulder again, hugging him tighter as the lazy rhythm built between them.

“Nhh...good... _real_ good, ‘Kawa…” his raspy voice sounded as close to undone as Oikawa had ever heard him...when he wasn’t yelling in panic in the wreckage of a crashed glider--

Oikawa tried to force that nasty thought away, but Iwa felt the sudden tension in his muscles and sat back, reaching to feel his expression. Oikawa pushed himself up on one elbow, ready to reassure him, swear to him it wasn’t his fault...but after a quick brush of fingertips across his face, Iwa smiled softly and ran his fingers through Oikawa’s hair.

“I don’t know where your brain just went, but it should come back here,” he murmured, pressing a gentle kiss against Oikawa’s cheek. Oikawa shivered and turned to catch his lips, draping himself over Iwa’s chest. Iwa’s arms wrapped around him, cuddling him close, and Oikawa sighed and melted against him, warm and boneless and... _safe,_ even with his knee in agony and the storm screaming outside their fragile shelter, he’d felt safe in Iwa’s arms.

He was the son of a single mother, raised half by her and half by his sister and half by Vinetown’s feral streets, before he’d fled to the stormskippers to fly a craft substantial as a paper airplane in the teeth of South Pole storms. _Safe_ had never been an easy thing to find.

Until now, until Iwa kissed him on the lips with the sound of the rain all around them, and suddenly _safe_ was his for the asking.

“ _Hey._ Tooru.” _Safe_ squeezed his shoulders, ruffling his hair. “You trying to wander off again? Stay with me, duckling.”

“I’m here,” Oikawa whispered, cupping both hands around Iwaizumi’s face. He stared at him in the dim lantern light, wanting to memorize every detail of his face in that moment. _Mine for the asking…_ ”I promise I’m here.”

Iwa must have sensed the moment, because he stayed still, nuzzling slightly into Oikawa’s hands, until Oikawa moved, tipping his face up to kiss him like Iwa had the night before. His fingers trailed down Oikawa’s sides, skipping lightly over his ribs and back to the sensitive dip inside his hipbone, and Oikawa shivered, pressing closer.

“Hey, Kawa,” Iwa whispered, close to his ear, like they were sharing a secret, hand creeping lower. “Kawa, can I touch you?”

Something about the way he said it, about the sheer nervous _want_ in his voice, knocked Oikawa half out of his head. He clenched his teeth, hips bucking against Iwa’s hand, and stuttered out “P-please…”

He felt the smile against his skin as Iwa dipped his fingers below his waistband, and Oikawa whined impatiently and shoved at his shorts, squirming out of them fast enough to make his knee twinge in protest. He shivered, uncharacteristically shy as Iwa pressed their foreheads together and gently curled his fingers around him.

They both moaned, twin gasps mingling in the scant space between their lips, Iwa’s free hand tangled in his hair as he tentatively traced the his fingertips over Oikawa’s cock. The sensation went through Oikawa like an electric shock, leaving him trembling and boneless and _painfully_ hard, hips rocking instinctively into Iwa’s unsure touch.

“T-tell me if--?” he started, and Oikawa shook his head, cutting him off with a heavy kiss.

“Iwa, sweetheart, there’s no possible way you can do this wrong?”

Iwa flashed a lopsided smile at that, chasing the awestruck nerves from his expression. “Is that a fact?” he whispered, half-teasing, and gave Oikawa an experimental stroke from root to tip that left him a trembling mess against Iwa’s shoulder.

“ _Immutable truth,_ ” Oikawa mumbled, trying to reassemble his brain and stars sparked behind his eyelids, “Iwa, _Gods,_ can I…” his fingers strayed towards the catch of Iwa’s pants, and his heart leapt nodded, catching his lips again.

Oikawa snuggled close and settled them back on their sides, impatiently stripping Iwa out of his pants, reaching to pull him close, pull their hips together, and... _oh._

 _Oh_ the way Iwa trembled agaisnt him at the first brush of his fingers over soft, hot skin, the choked groan in his throat that he muffled against Oikawa’s shoulder, hips jumping into the touch, slick liquid spilling over Oikawa’s fingers.

“ _T-tooru…”_ he whispered into the curve of Oikawa’s neck, and Oikawa moaned and surged against him, head spinning and skin sparking, felt too tight over his muscles as Iwa clutched him tighter, responding to the movement and they fell into a heavy, wanting rhythm.

Somewhere Oikawa found the presence of mind to catch Iwa’s hand, to guide them together, trembling fingers tangled as their cocks slid together, Iwa gasping into his shoulder, _Toorutoorutooru_ and Oikawa felt drunk on it, drunk on _him,_ dizzy and breathless and falling harder by the second. Iwa’s fingers tangled through his hair again, clenching hard enough to pull, the sting just another wave of sparks under his burning skin as Iwa pulled his head down and crashed their lips together, hard enough to draw blood and his gasp muffled in Oikawa’s mouth as his hips jerked and he came _hard_ between them.

His grip loosened and Oikawa moaned, half frantic as he clenched their tangled fingers, a desperate jumble of pleas falling from his lips, _dontstopdontstopdontstop_ and Iwa obliged him, warm and steady against Oikawa’s ticking skin as something snapped deep in his belly and sent him tumbling over the edge.

The lantern was burning considerably lower by the time either one of them moved - Oikawa gently untangling their sticky fingers and pressing a kiss to Iwa’s forehead where he lay half-dozing on his shoulder.

“You okay?” he teased, feeling around for his discarded shorts and sacrificing them to the cause of de-stickying. Iwa responded with a rapturous hum, flopping an arm over Oikawa’s waist and nuzzling into his chest.

“Sleepy?”

Affirmative hum.

“Capable of human speech?”

“ _Ffffuckoff, ‘kawa Tooru.”_

“I’ll take it,” Oikawa giggled, stretching out on his back and letting Iwa sprawl warm and heavy across his chest. He blew out the lantern and draped an arm over his boneless lover, idly stroking his back.

Oikawa was by no means averse to cuddling, but he’d never been good at staying still, and he had a long and well documented history of post-coital hyperness. But it was hard to get too restless with a warm, sleepy earthbender weighing down his chest.

He sighed and tried to just enjoy the buzz, relax in the darkness, just let his thoughts drift…calm, safe, just relax, drift off to sleep...

“Hey, Iwa?”

Iwa shifted sleepily. “Mmm?”

“Does straight porn use cold noodles too?”

The jungle crickets were loud in the silence.

“ _This_ is your pillow talk?”

Oikawa whined, squirming under Iwa’s warm weight on his chest. “I can’t stop thinking about it!”

“Go to _sleep,_ Tooru.”

The sound of crickets suffused the tent once more.

“Hey, ‘Kawa…” Iwa’s voice sounded vulnerable and soft, barely loud enough to penetrate the nighttime noise of the island.

“Mmm?”

Iwa seemed to hesitate, one finger drawing idle, gentle patterns over Oikawa’s skin as he sought for words.

“They use jello.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for your patience these last few months, friends. This was my final semester of grad school, aka The Thesis Defense Reckoning, but the beast has been vanquished and I am free of academia (mostly) and will be no doubt loudly indulging in gay idiots for the rest of the summer.
> 
> I also take a certain amount of pride in the fact that as of chapter 5, Storm Season is about 25% longer than my entire thesis.


	6. Perspectives

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What is it they say about Iwaoi fics and angst...

A soft, musical sound, delicate and tinkling, drew Iwaizumi slowly out of sleep, head warm and full of fuzz and struggling to get a grip on reality. He sorted sleepily through unfamiliar sounds and sensations, rustling leaves, tingling lips, the soft fleece inside the bedroll and rain pattering on the wing overhead, warm skin under his cheek – _Oikawa –_

Iwaizumi’s senses focused, and he realized in an instant that Oikawa was awake to lying on his back with a long arm stretched out above his head. As Iwaizumi listened, he trailed his fingers over the wires of the wing above them, producing the gentle, musical tinkle that had woken him. A faint flutter of lashes as Oikawa blinked against the predawn light, worrying his lip between his teeth as his fingers plucked absently at the wires. Iwaizumi wondered if Oikawa’s lips felt soft and tender too.

“Can’t sleep?” he murmured, and Oikawa startled, pulling a loud _twang_ from the wires. Iwaizumi muffled a laugh against his shoulder.

“Another storm,” Oikawa said softly. “I don’t know how long we can afford to stay here.” His fingers skipped down the wires again.

Iwaizumi cocked his head, propping himself up on one elbow. There was…something, a catch, a dark dull edge half-suppressed in Oikawa’s voice, but his face was too still for Iwaizumi to read his expression.

He shifted closer and trailed his fingers carefully over Oikawa’s face, finding deep furrows etched across his forehead. Iwaizumi frowned and rubbed his thumb over the worry lines at the corners of Oikawa’s eyes, trying to sooth them away.

“’Kawa?”

Oikawa let out a shaky sigh, turning his face into Iwaizumi’s touch. “It’s the storms,” he mumbled, voice low and rough with worry. “The season’s starting early…it’s gonna be long, and unpredictable, and…” he pulled another wire, a few frayed ends pricking at his skin. “How much of this bad cable is out there? I had you to warn me…if another pilot loses a wing like we did, in a polar storm…

Iwaizumi felt his stomach drop at the thought. Oikawa ran a hand down his face. “I should be _with_ them. I should be there, helping the flight get ready, I’m supposed to be there _now,_ but I had to squeeze in one last passenger job…and one of them might die cause I had to grab for an extra hundred bucks and get myself _stranded…”_

There was real, raw anger in his voice, pricking at Iwaizumi’s skin like the ice in the air above the clouds.

“You regret it that much, do you?” he said dully. Oikawa’s eyes flew open.

“Oh gods, Iwa-chan, that’s not what I—I didn’t—“ his voice quavered, and Iwaizumi’s stomach squeezed with guilt.

“I know…ah hell, I _know.”_ Iwaizumi’s hands clenched into fists at his sides. “I just…j-just…”

Oikawa’s hands found his shoulders and jerked him into a tight hug. Iwaizumi swallowed a sob and burrowed into Oikawa’s shoulder.

“I’m sorry—“ Oikawa started to shake his head, but Iwaizumi cut off his objections and plunged on. “I’m _sorry,_ Kawa, I just…I can’t stop _thinking_ about it…I could’ve _missed_ you. Missed this. You could’ve just dumped me at the Air Temple and flown away and I never would’ve known that you…that _I…”_

Oikawa cupped his face in both hands and kissed him, hard and needy. Iwaizumi gasped against his lips and kissed him back, eyes squeezing shut as his hands fisted in the back of Oikawa’s shirt, trying to drag him closer even though they were already tangled tight together.

“I would’ve found you,” Oikawa blurted, the second they broke apart to breathe. He didn’t let go of Iwaizumi’s face, thumbs running over his cheekbones. “I would’ve found you one way or another. I never could’ve ‘just missed’ you, Iwa-ch—“

“Oh please,” Iwaizumi snorted. “You hated my guts when we first met. I could _hear_ you rolling your eyes.”

“You called me a pompous fluffball.”

“You _are_ a pompous fluffball!”

“Yeah, and you’re still a spoiled rotten Republic princeling.”

“You love it,” Iwaizumi retorted, squishing Oikawa’s cheeks.

“I love—“ Oikawa bit off the sentence, cheeks flushing hot under Iwaizumi’s hands, both their hearts lurching into overdrive together. He didn’t need to say it, not when Iwaizumi’s mind was already screaming it, unspoken words echoing in the scant space of mingled breath between their lips.

_\--you, I love you, I love you I love you—_

It was too soon. Too soon and they both knew it, with just a few days behind them jumbled up with the whiplash contrast of boredom and trauma. It was way too soon an that didn’t make it feel any less true in Iwaizumi’s swirling head.

Oikawa tugged Iwaizumi closer with a sigh, pressing their foreheads together. Iwaizumi shut his eyes and tangle his fingers in Oikawa’s hair.

“Hey," he murmured, their lips brushing, Oikawa’s rushing pulse pounding hot in his veins. “I don’t care if its selfish…I’m glad you grabbed the money.” Oikawa laughed quietly and pressed a soft, sweet kiss to the corner of Iwaizumi’s mouth. “Plus, I know you didn’t do it for the money. You don’t do _any_ of it for the money – there must be a thousand jobs that’d pay more for an athletic guy like you.” He felt those ridiculous eyes blink at him, long lashes tickling his cheeks. “You do it ‘cause you _really_ love to fly.”

“You give me too much credit, Iwa-chan.”

“I don’t think I give you enough.” Iwaizumi kissed him again, and Oikawa’s pulse fluttered. “I don’t think anyone does.”

Oikawa flushed hot and nuzzled into Iwaizumi’s chest. “I wish you could see what it’s like, Iwa-chan,” he murmured. His hand found Iwaizumi’s, and he laced their fingers together, rubbing his cheek against Iwaizumi’s chest. “I wish I know how to describe it so you’d understand. There’s _nothing_ that’s not beautiful from the air. Even Vinetown…”

Iwaizumi laughed quietly.

“It’s true!” Oikawa pouted. “It’s just…gods, it’s just this solid mass of green dropping off into the ocean…” He sighed, slipping one hand behind his head and lifting the other to trail over the wing wires again. “I used to _hate_ it, so much. My mom got herself a place as an Air Acolyte when I was about twelve, but she couldn’t take us with her, it was just my sister ‘n me most of the time, and I felt so _trapped,_ down there in all the noise and the…and the violence…” he trailed off, voice dropping rough for a moment, and his hand brushed over his knee, feeling the ache of the old injury. “I was so _angry_ back then, Iwa-chan. Angry at where I was born, at angry at Mom for bein’ gone all the time and my sister for saying we just had to suck it up and deal with it…but when Mom finally saved the money to bring Hikaru and me to the Air Temple, and I saw Seijoh from the sky, on the bison flight…the whole place is beautiful. It looks like one big living thing. Like some huge old tree, or a turtle covered in vines, growing right out of the water. And once I’d seen all that beauty from the air, I found it again on the ground…once flying showed me where to look…

“Soon as I’d seen it once, I knew I’d do anything, whatever it took, to get back up there again.” He laughed softly. Good thing Hikaru told me about the glider corps when she did…I was plotting to steal a flying bison.”

“Aren’t you _allergic_ to flying bison?”

“Yeah, doubt I’d’ve gotten far. They’d just have to follow the trail of sneezing…”

“Heh.” Iwaizumi squeezed Oikawa’s hand and rolled onto his side to nudge their noses together. “Tell you a secret?”

“Hm?”

“When I first found out I could bend…when I learned to…to see through the earth, like the badgermoles do…I thought the exact same thing about Seijoh.” Oikawa’s lashes fluttered against his skin in the dark. “I’d spent all those years…stuck behind my eyes, y’know? All alone in my own little world, with everyone treating me like I was made of glass. Til that day my hands hit the rock and the whole world was just…just _there_ inside my head – I thought the same thing you did. That the whole island was alive, like it was all one big breathing creature and I was _part_ of it, I wasn’t—“

“I wasn’t on my own anymore,” Oikawa finished for him. “All the shit you’d taken didn’t matter because there’s so much _more_ than you out there.” Iwaizumi’s heart fluttered against his ribs, just like it did when Oikawa kissed him.

_I love you, I love you I love you I love you…_

Thunder rolled, far of and faint. Oikawa sighed.

“It’ll be the Kitagawa Daiichi flight going up first, if the storms keep moving south,” he mumbled. “My kouhais…the kids I trained, most of ‘em. If something goes wrong…”

“If something goes wrong,” Iwaizumi said softly, “then they learned from the best there is how to handle it.” Oikawa squeezed his eyes.

“I’m still gonna worry though.”

“’Course you are. You love ‘em.”

“I do, I really do…” Oikawa paused, and wrinkled his nose, going back to idly plucking the wires again. “Gods, don’t _ever_ tell Tobio I said that.”

“My discretion will cost – wait.” Iwaizumi sat up and cocked his head. “Wait, do that again.”

“What, this?” Oikawa twanged at the wires.

“Both of them – hit those two again.”

_Ping-pling_

“Is one of those frayed?”

Oikawa blinked at him. “Yeah, this one.” _Ping._

“But not the other.”

Confused, but catching the beginnings of Iwaizumi’s excitement, Oikawa shook his head.

“Pull one of the other frayed ones.” Oikawa obliged, and Iwaizumi bounced up onto his knees.

“They’re different! Can you hear it? Do it again!”

_Ping-pling._ “I mean, they’re different lengths…”

Iwaizumi shook his head, frowning in concentration. “It’s not the pitch, it’s…I don’t know the right words, but it’s _different!_ The fraying wires, the faulty ones, they don’t sound the same!”

“I know which ones in the wings are faulty, though.”

“What about your spare roll of wire? I mean, if it’s faulty too we’re still stuck, but if it’s _not—“_

Oikawa stared at him for a long, silent moment, and then he launched out of his nest of blankets, grabbed Iwaizumi by the ears, and kissed him hard on the mouth.

“ _Amazing,”_ he whispered against the reeling Iwaizumi’s lips. “ _Amazing, mesmerizing, my Iwa-chan…”_ he scrambled to his feet and bounded out of the tent, oblivious to the spitting rain.

Iwaizumi flopped back into the blankets, cheeks burning, half-aware of the thunking and clunking of Oikawa tearing through storage compartments outside. He ran his fingertips over his tingling lips, feeling distinctly harassed. Then he shook his head and followed Oikawa outside.

* * *

 

“Okay,” Oikawa called from under the _Furudate’s_ collapsed wing, muffled by the mass of canvas draped over him. “I’m good on this end, hit it.”

Iwaizumi hauled on the ratchet lever clamped to the outer strut of the wing, stretching the new wire tight by degrees. Oikawa shuffled around under the wing, watching the other end of the wire like a hawk to make sure it didn’t rip out of its socket as Iwaizumi tightened it. The braided metal sang with the tension, and Iwaizumi gritted his teeth and heaved until the ratchet clicked.

“Tight enough?” he called, wiping the sweat out of his eyes. By the time they got the spare wire out and strung, the clouds had broken, and the blazing island sun was hammering down. Iwaizumi locked the ratchet lever in place and stripped his shirt off over his head.

“Can you get one more notch?” Oikawa squirmed his way out from under the wing and sat up with a groan. “Here, lemme help –“

Iwaizumi slapped his hand away with a glare. “You _stay_ down there and keep your weight off your knee,” he grumbled, reaching for the lever again. Their little squirrelotter friend, perched on the edge of the wing strut, chattered in agreement.

“Yeah, you tell ‘im,” Iwaizumi grinned. He curled his fingers around the lever again, wincing as the edges bit into his sore palms.

“My knee’s _fine,_ Iwa,” Oikawa whined as Iwaizumi threw his weight against the ratchet again. “It’s just stiff today! Not even puffy anymore!” The squirrelotter made a rude noise.

Iwaizumi barely heard him over the blood rushing in his ears. Glider mechanics did _this_ to tighten the wires thirty times? _Per wing?_ He had a newfound respect for the  engineering shops in the former Earth Kingdom. He growled and dug his feet in, calling on the sand to push against him as he flexed his back muscles and slammed the ratchet one notch tighter.

“That’s all you’re getting,” he panted, flopping to the sand next to Oikawa.

“Aww, no more growling and flexing?” Oikawa chirped. “ _Gods,_ how’d I get so lucky? Trapped on an island with the sexiest man in Seijoh…”

Iwaizumi rolled his eyes and shoved Oikawa’s shoulder, hard enough to send him sprawling into the sand with a squawk.

_“Mean!”_ Oikawa caught Iwaizumi’s shoulder and yanked him down too – the pilot’s willowy build hid a deceptive amount of strength, and he used all of it to wrestle Iwaizumi into the sand and flop across his chest to kiss him.

Just for that endless, weightless moment, Iwaizumi let himself get lost. Nothing but the sand clinging to his sweaty skin and Oikawa’s tongue warm and sweet between his lips, long fingers cradling his face...perfect and shimmering and long-lived as a soap bubble, this perfect moment slipping through his fingers.

Eventually, inevitably, Oikawa rolled off, and they sprawled side by side in the relative cool under the wing, shoulders pressed together and legs still half-tangled. Iwaizumi rolled his head to the side, and pressed his nose against Oikawa’s shoulder.

“One thing left to do…”

“Yeah…”

Oikawa found Iwaizumi’s hand and tangled their fingers together. Then he reached up with his free hand, and plucked the new wire in the wing.

_Ping_

Iwaizumi furrowed his brows, biting his lip in concentration. He strained his senses for the tell-tale difference, half heard and half felt in the harmonics at the edge of the sound. Oikawa shifted beside him, squeezing his hand, but he didn’t make a sound. Even their vocal squirelotter friend was silent, head cocked and tail twitching.

“Again.”

Oikawa twanged the new wire, and the one beside it, frayed where it stretched over the wing strut. Iwaizumi’s eyes popped open.

“It’s okay,” he whispered. Oikawa startled, his own eyes widening.

“You’re sure?”

Iwaizumi nodded, a smile breaking through his concentration.

“You’re really, _really_ sure?”

“‘m  sure, Tooru.” Iwaizumi grinned, shoving loose canvas aside as he sat up. “Your spare wire isn’t flawed. We can fix the wing --”

“We can warn the Storm Skippers about the bad wires!” Oikawa bubbled, breathless with excitement.

Iwaizumi scrambled up and back into the sun, reaching down to pull Oikawa up too. The pilot jumped up without hesitation, catching Iwaizumi’s hands, weight hitting both his feet -

Another man might never have seen the flicker, the tiny instant when Oikawa’s weight hit his knee and his expression twisted. But Iwaizumi didn’t need to see it. Iwaizumi _felt_ it, not just the sudden tension in Oikawa’s face, but the ripple that pulled through his entire body, the way his breath stopped in his chest for a full second, choked to stillness before it came back with a shudder, his heart stuttering overtime. Iwaizumi froze.

“Oikawa--”

Iwaizumi dropped his hand, and Oikawa quailied away, his heartbeat going wild with sudden fear.

“It’s fine, Iwa, I’m _fine, Iwa, don’t--”_

Iwaizumi dropped to the sand, slapping Oikawa’s hands away. He set his fingers on Oikawa’s knee, and his breath hissed through his teeth in a rush of horror.

“You were _hiding_ this from me?”

“It’s _fine--”_

“ _Liar,”_ Iwaizumi snapped, tracing his fingers around Oikawa’s swollen knee. The joint was distended, badly, too hot and throbbing under Iwaizumi’s touch. Angry, hot streaks traced up the inside of his thigh, spreading from the deep punctures left by his broken knee brace.

Oikawa was shaking. Iwaizumi could barely think to form words.

“You told me it was getting better.”

“Iwa--”

“Why would you _lie?_ Why’d you keep this from me?” Iwaizumi knew there was too much anger, too much venom in his voice, but he’d gone too far already to rein it in. “What the _hell_ is wrong with you?” he yelled, surging back to his feet and grabbing Oikawa’s shoulders. “You can’t fly like this! Why would you pretend--”

  
“Because I knew you’d stop me!” Oikawa cried, and Iwaizumi flinched at the sound of tears choking his voice. “You’d worry and worry and try to talk me out of leaving and they’ve _gotta be warned!_ If Tobio-chan, and Kindaichi and Kunimi and all the kids _I_ trained fly south with bad cables in their wings...if something goes wrong when I could’ve stopped it...I can’t let that happen, Iwa! I _can’t!”_

_“You can’t fly like this,”_ Iwaizumi whispered, words half-choked behind his teeth. “I’ve seen how much strain flying puts on you… do you _get_ how bad your knee is hurt?”

Those big round eyes blinked silently at him, Oikawa’s face settling into stillness Iwaizumi couldn’t read, even though their faces were bare inches apart, chests nearly touching as both of them panted. He’d even lost track of Oikawa’s heartbeat - it was  drowned out by his own, hammering blood through his veins in a race spiraling close to panic.

“ _You_ are asking _me_ if I get it?” Oikawa asked, voice heavy. “I had a doctor tell me I might not _walk_ when I was thirteen, Iwa-chan. For ten years every instructor I’ve had has told me one more tear is all it’ll take. One more tear and that’s _it_ for me. And you think I don’t _get_ it?”

Iwaizumi’s fingers slipped off Oikawa’s shoulders, and he stumbled back a step, his breath coming in harsh, jagged gasps. Oikawa turned his face away, hugging himself tight like a frightened child.

“I know this is probably the last flight I’ll ever make. _Gods_ I know. But they’ve got to be warned.”

“You _can’t_!” Iwaizumi cried, and now it was his voice shattering around tears.

“Yeah, well, unless a boat with a healer and a blacksmith comes by, we’ve got no choice,” Oikawa spat, nails cutting crescents in his arms.

“Give it a _week,_ Oikawa,” Iwaizumi begged. Oikawa twisted away, refusing to look at him. “We’ve got all the food we need - give it a chance to heal, we’ll find a way to fix your brace - you can’t do this to yourself! You can’t give up flying, I know what it means to you - you can’t lose all that, all that beauty, all-- all--”

_All that freedom, the freedom to go wherever you want, wherever I am you can’t get to the Air Temple if you can’t fly you’ll leave me there and disappear and it’ll be just like I never found you at all-_

_“_ You c-can’t, K-kawa, _Tooru-”_

Iwaizumi startled violently when Oikawa’s fingers touched his face - he’d been too lost in his spiraling panic attack to feel him move. Oikawa cupped his face, clutching at Iwaizumi’s tear-stained cheeks, and kissed him _hard,_ rough and desperate and frightened. He was crying too, salt bitter on his lips as Iwaizumi clung to him, burying his hands in Oikawa’s soft hair.

“You’d do it too,” Oikawa whispered against Iwaizumi’s lips, thumbs brushing tears from his lashes. “If it was your friends,  Makki or Mattsun or Kyoutani...you’ give it up for them.” He didn’t have to explain what it was they shared - what was slipping through Oikawa’s fingers with every heartbeat - the air to Oikawa, the earth to Iwaizumi, their true sense of the world, the one clear vision of their place in the chaos of existence.

“You’d do it too,” Oikawa repeated, and it was the absolute, certain faith in his voice that finally shattered Iwaizumi.

_Would you do it too, Iwaizumi Hajime? If it was down to the wire, give up your bending, give up your senses give up your place in the world for them would you do it too?_

_That could never happen, I’d never have to make that choice--_

But _could..._ it could happen, it _had_ happened. It was happening to Oikawa right now. _Give it up, the most valuable thing you have in this world, the one thing you can’t imagine life without, give it up and go back to being blind in the dark, so your friends have a chance..._ that was Oikawa’s choice, here and now.

And Oikawa didn’t hesitate.

“Iwa? _Iwa, woah, hey--”_

Iwaizumi was vaguely aware of his knees hitting the sand, vaguely aware of Oikawa crouching awkwardly beside him, shaking his shoulders, but he couldn’t fight his way out of the hell inside his head, even as Oikawa called his name in increasing worry.

_Give it up for them? Yeah, right._

_“I didn’t even say goodbye.”_

Oikawa’s fingers were on his cheeks again, brushing his tears away, but he stilled when Iwaizumi finally gasped the words out.

“Iwa?”

“I didn’t even say good _bye_ to them,” Iwaizumi sobbed, teeth tearing at his lower lip. He clutched at Oikawa’s shoulders, and Oikawa let him, bracing one arm behind him in the sand to prop them both up.

“You didn’t--”

“I’m not _you,_ ‘Kawa. Telling Mama I was miserable was too hard so I just snuck out to the city every night, saying goodbye to Makki and Mattsun was too hard so I just...I just fucking _disappeared_ without even tellin’ ‘em I was going, s-seeing you h-hurt is too h-hard…” his throat closed on the words, but he felt Oikawa press their foreheads together, felt the tears on the pilot’s cheeks, and knew he understood.

_Seeing you hurt is too hard, I can’t sit behind you and be helpless while you tear yourself apart, I can’t do it, don’t destroy yourself for them save yourself for me, because I’m a spoiled, selfish coward who never learned how to let go of something I want for myself, I’ve never learned what a sacrifice feels like, don’t make me start with you, not_ you, _don’t…_

_“Don’t leave me alone,”_ Iwaizumi whispered. They were the only words that even came close to the feeling.

“Oh Iwa…” Oikawa pulled him into a crushing hug, legs splayed out in the sand, letting Iwaizumi curl around him and bury his face in his shoulder. His tears dripped into Iwaizumi’s hair as a clinging, desperate silence settled over them both.

A weight, warm and fuzzy, landed on Iwaizumi’s leg, breaking the helpless fug as he startled in Oikawa’s arms. Their flying squirrellotter friend perched on his knee, head cocked, with an apricot twice the size of her head speared on her sharp little fangs. She addressed both humans with an emphatic series of muffled squeaks, then dropped the fruit in Iwaizumi’s lap and hopped back into the treeline. She was back a moment later with another apricot, which she imperiously presented to Oikawa, and scrambled up onto the wing above them, awkward on her twisted hind leg, to glare down.

“Is she trying to help?” Iwaizumi asked, over the stream of squirrel scolding from overhead.

“Well, we fed her…so she’s feeding us?”

“Maybe squirrelotters only fight about food…”

The two humans exchanged a baffled stare. Then they both burst into laughter.

 

“Y’know, I do feel better,” Iwaizumi admitted, licking juice off his fingers. Oikawa snorted and settled back against the belly of the glider behind him, still holding Iwaizumi tight against his chest. The heavy silence settled back in again, but the furious tension had finally deflated.

“ _It won’t stop me flying,”_ Oikawa whispered, voice soft. Iwaizumi sat up straighter, running his fingers over Oikawa’s fierce expression. “I don’t care if they take my whole leg off, I’ll find a way. Hell, the kid who _invented_ these things couldn’t walk at all. A fucked up knee isn’t gonna keep me on the ground.” The squirrelotter replied with a string of scolding. “Amen, sister.”

Iwaizumi laughed softly, hiding his face in Oikawa’s shoulder. “How the hell did you get to be so _brave,_ Oikawa Tooru?”

“Arrogance and lack of foresight, mostly.”

“Aww, ‘Ka...wa…” Iwaizui trailed off and sat up, cocking his head. “Hey. You hear that?”

“Hm?”

“Sounds like it’s out on the water...kind of a humming? Almost like a...like a motor…”

He felt Oikawa’s eyes fly wide a second before the pilot shot to his feet, hauling himself up against the glider and dislodging both Iwaizumi and the squirellotter in a cavalcade of human and squirrel protests. Oikawa scanned the horizon for a breathless moment, knuckles white on the wing propping him up - and then he bounced straight up into the air with an earsplitting whoop, waving both arms over his head.

“ _Oy! Hoy, hey, over here!”_

_“_ ‘Kawa, what the _hell--”_

_“Boat!”_ Oikawa yelled, jumping again, ridiculously high even with only one leg. “ _Boat boat boat we need a signal, boat!”_

Iwaizumi was on his feet in a second, casting around...what the hell made a good signal? The remains of last night’s fire smouldered a few yards away...fire...that was _light_ wasn’t it? That was easy to see.

“Stand back,” he yelled to Oikawa, who was still bouncing up and down and yelling, and shoved his fingers into the sand. _Sand, air, ash,_ spin--he sent a bolt of energy rushing through the bones of the island, exploding out under the remains of the fire. A geyser of sand and ash and glowing embers blasted fifty feet into the air, and Oikawa’s whooping dissolved into coughing and laughter.

“They’re turning _they’re turning they’re turning!”_ Oikawa took off down the beach in the weird, hopping run he used to get around on his bad knee, leaving Iwaizumi coughing in the cloud of his own signal. He waited long enough to be sure that all the embers had settled safely in the sand again before he followed Oikawa down to the edge of the surf. He could _feel_ the boat now , a little metal fishing tug wallowing just off the beach, its oily engine smoke mixing with salt and seaweed and the voices of people, and Oikawa up to his knees in the water and calling up to someone on the deck. Three people, leaning over the side to talk to Oikawa.

The young man in the back of the boat killed the motor as Iwaizumi caught up, leaving his sensitive ears ringing in the silence. He hopped over the rail, easy and graceful, landing with a splash in the surf.

“Hey.” He extended a hand, and Iwaizumi took it, feeling the stripes of _serious_ callouses and old burn scars and cuts dotting his fingers. “I’m Sawamura Daichi.”

“Iwaizumi Hajime.”

“Oikawa Tooru.”

"The little one up there is Noya," Daichi said, jerking a thumb over his shoulder. "And the giant trying to hide behind him is Asahi." He shaded his eyes with a hand, peering up the beach to the crumpled glider and the remains of Iwaizumi’s stone storm break toppled in the sand. “That looks like a hell of a long story,” he said mildly.

“Understatement,” Iwaizumi muttered, and Daichi shot him a sympathetic smile. Iwaizumi scooted over to  Oikawa and dragged his arm over his shoulders. “Get your weight off your knee, idiot.”

Daichi frowned, his sharp eyes shooting to Oikawa’s bandaged, swollen knee. “You’re hurt? Oi, Asahi!” he called over his shoulder, waving to the other man still lurking on the deck of the boat. “I _told_ you they weren’t pirates, get down here!”

Asahi slunk cautiously down into the shallow water, attempting ineffectually to hide behind Daichi. He was _tall,_ even taller than Oikawa, but everything about the way he moved and stood seemed designed to hide it. His long hair was tied up loosely at the back of his neck, except for two loops framing either side of his face...there was something vaguely familiar about the style, but Iwaizumi couldn’t place it.

Oikawa chortled to himself, almost dancing on the spot with delight, leaning heavily on Iwaizumi’s shoulder. “What’d I miss?” Iwaizumi asked, shooting him a sidelong smile.

“Y’know how I said flying out was our only option unless a boat with a blacksmith and a healer came by?”

“Yeah?”

Oikawa giggled, gesturing to Daichi and Asahi, and Iwaizumi suddenly realized why he recognized the style of their clothes, Asahi’s hair, even their squat iron fishing boat. Seijoh’s harbor filled up with men and women just like them every spring. They were from the South Pole. Water tribe. He started to grin too, and Oikawa flopped both arms over his shoulders, laughing in his ear.

“A boat with a blacksmith and a healer came by.”

 


	7. Bring Me the Horizon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This has been a fun one.
> 
> Thanks for bearing with me on the long waits between chapters - I picked a busy time to launch a multichapter project, but the boys have been a joy to write from start to finish. There's a brief epilogue that I'm hoping to have up next week, and then...if you're wondering what the heck was up with Daichi and his 'first boyfriend,' well...stay tuned, folks.
> 
> For reading ambiance this chapter, I'd like to recommend [Sea of Voices by Porter Robinson](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSooYPG-5Rg#start=0:00;end=4:59;cycles=-1;autoreplay=true), available at a YouTube near you!
> 
> Thank you for reading my 40000 word love letter to Oikawa Tooru. It's been a blast.

“Ready, Asahi?” Daichi’s eyes were fixed on two metal rods wedged deep in the fire, watching them intensely. “They’re almost there.” Asahi grunted an affirmative, not bothering to look up.

“Okay, here we go…” Daichi pulled one rod out of the coals and pressed the blazing hot tip to the joint of Oikawa’s knee brace, spread out carefully in the sand in front of him. The thin coils of wire wrapped around the broken joint hissed and smoked, softening and running together as the acid scent of hot metal filled the air.

“Hit it!” Daichi called, and Asahi twirled a finger in the air. He barely glanced up, but a delicate tendril of water arced out of the bowl by his side and quenched the glowing weld with pinpoint precision.  Daichi nodded his approval.

“That’s pretty damn impressive, Asahi-san,” Oikawa said, as the shy healer refocused his attention on Oikawa’s knee. Asahi just grunted again, but his cheeks instantly flushed warm, and Oikawa stifled a giggle. The his squirrelotter friend hopped from his shoulder up to his head, pawing tufts of hair aside so she could peer down and watch the glowing water rolling around Oikawa’s knee.

Asahi’s long fingers moved gracefully, gently shaping the humming, thrumming streamers of water coiled around Oikawa’s knee. The way they moved, roiling and twisting around each other, reminded Iwaizumi of the long, whiskery dragon carp in his mother’s courtyard pool back home, rippling and sinuous and deceptively powerful in the effortless way they moved.

Daichi slipped the soldering rods back into the fire, under the teapot balanced precariously on the pyramid of logs, and adjusted th em carefully to make sure they lay across the hottest coals. He turned Oikawa’s knee brace over in his hands, testing the joints and the fresh, cooling welds. Noya’s laughter echoed down the beach - he lay on his back in the sand, near the spot where the stream met the ocean, buried in squirrelotters and apparently dying of happiness.

Iwaizumi sat a little apart from the others, hugging his knees against his chest, listening to the crackling fire and Asahi’s humming healing magic, mostly lost in thought One corner of his mind stayed focused on Oikawa’s face - he was watching with rapt fascination as Asahi worked, face lit up with delight and _Gods_ it was cute, and so, so far from the frozen, hard-bitten determination of that morning…

Iwaizumi shivered, hugging himself a little tighter. The choice they’d been staring down, just a few hours ago...the choice _Oikawa_ had been staring down. Iwaizumi bit his lip hard, mentally berating himself. _His choice,_ his, _not yours at all you selfish bastard, not your life not your loss not your pain…_

_“_...can be there pretty quick, if we leave early enough to catch the tide,” Daichi was saying, when Iwaizumi zoned back into reality.  “We can get the harbormaster to radio Kitagawa Daiichi --”

“They’ll be able to check the gliders before anyone flies,” Oikawa said, with a deep, shaking sigh. “ _Thank_ you, Sawamura-san.”

“Call me Daichi, man.” Daichi clapped Oikawa’s shoulder warmly. “Dateko’s a big harbor too, there’s probably a carrier they can send for the glider.”

Even sitting apart as he was, Iwaizumi _felt_ Oikawa wince, twisting his head to gaze up the beach at the crumpled frame of his beloved glider, and Iwa’s heart squeezed at the pain on his face. Iwaizumi had no love lost for that contraption, but even to him it felt wrong, abandoning it crumpled on the beach where it had fallen, waiting for the garbage boat from Dateko...it felt too much like leaving a wounded friend behind.

Oikawa hunched his shoulders, worrying his lower lip between his teeth, and Iwaizumi decided he didn’t care about appearances. He scooted across the sand and wrapped his arms tight around Oikawa’s waist. Oikawa startled, stiffening just for a second - they’d maintained a  certain unspoken distance all evening, ever since Oikawa’s biting, tear-stained kiss - but his surprise only lasted an instant before he melted into Iwaizumi’s hold, letting his head droop to his shoulder.

The warm, gentle hum of Asahi’s healing magic thrummed through them both, soft and soothing, and IWaizumi rested his cheek on the top of Oikawa’s head with a soft sigh. Neither Daichi nor ASahi batted an eye. Oikawa snuggled closer, sleepy from the healing, and rubbed his face against Iwa’s shoulder.

“Hey, Iwa-chan--”

“ _Incomiiiiiiiiiiiing!”_

A faint puff of air ruffled the hair around Iwaizumi’s ear, but he barely had time to turn his head before an airborn squirrelotter smacked into the side of his face.

Iwaizumi jumped half out of his skin, losing his balance and falling backwards with an earsplitting shriek, the squirrelotter still clinging to his hair. Roused from her nap in Oikawa’s lap, their little yellow-bellied friend scrambled up the front of Oikawa’s jacket to perch in his hair and scold them.

“Noya, you idiot!” Daichi yelled, while Iwaizumi tried to sort out which way was up.Noya and Oikawa both doubled up, wheezing with laughter. Asahi appeared to be trying to sink into the sand.

“Oh my _Gods,_ Iwa-chan,” Oikawa gasped, wiping tears out of his eyes. “How are you _capable_ of noises that high-pitched?”

“Were you raised in a _barn,”_ Daichi grumbled, catching Iwaizumi’s arm. “Throwing things at a blind guy…”

“Oooh, _barns._ Where I come from we thought the kids who were raised in barns were _swank--_ wait.” Noya broke off, his already big eyes getting wider. “B-b-blind guy?”

“You didn’t _notice?”_ Daichi exploded.

“Actually, most people don’t,” Iwaizumi said, letting Daichi pull him upright. “I’m kinda impressed _you_ picked it up that quick.”

“Daichi notices everything,” Asahi muttered darkly. “Everything. _There is no hiding.”_

_“Iwa I’m sooooorrryyyyyyyyyyy!”_

Noya was bigger than a squirrelotter, but Iwaizumi still didn’t have time to register the movement before he was, once again, blidsided at high speed and sent toppling back into the sand. Oikawa, who had just managed to get his breath back, collapsed into a heap again, howling with laughter as squirrelotters dove for safety in all directons.

“I’msorrI’msorryI’msorry I didn’t _realize,_ you don’t _act_ blind--”

“What did you expect, that he’d stumble around bumping into shit?” Daichi swatted Noya’s ear. “C’mon, let him up.”

Iwaizumi shook his head and hauled himself up, against the press of the small body clamped around his waist. “Don’t sweat it,” he mumbled, ruffling Noya’s hair vaguely. “Oikawa throws stuff at me all the time and he _knows_ I’m blind.”

“ _Mean.”_ Oikawa propped himself up and flopped over Iwaizumi’s shoulders, wiping his eyes.

Noya bounced to his feet, and there was something distinctly...odd about the way he did it. To Iwaizumi’s senses, he didn’t stand up at all - he just launched back to his feet like he’d been pushed from below by a force that briefly flooded Iwaizumi’s senses with the movements of a billion swirling sand grains.

He wasn’t the only one to notice: Oikawa was staring too, head cocked. Behind them, Daichi and Asahi exchanged  a nervous glance. Oikawa slapped a hand over his mouth.

“Fuck me!” he blurted through his fingers. “Fuck _me,_ you’re an airbender!”

“I _told_ you to keep a lid on it,” Daichi sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose, but he was smiling faintly when he raised his head.

“A real live airbender,” Oikawa said wonderingly. He hopped to his feet, stiff on his newly healed knee, peering at Noya like he was a new piece of machinery. “Where’d you _find_ him?”

“In a closet,” Asahi mumbled, poking the fire with a length of driftwood. Oikawa and Iwaizumi laughed.

“No, really,” Daichi said, though he was laughing too. He was hiding in the closet in our room at the inn.”

“With my _wallet,”_ Asahi interjected, looking hurt.

“Hey, I _gave_ it _back.”_

“I had to freeze you to the floor!”

“Aw, _yeah.”_ Noya grinned ear to ear. “Stuck me straight to the carpet, frozen in ice up to my waist and goes ‘ _Give it back’_ in that low voice -” he flopped to the sand and leaned into Asahi’s side. “Sexiest thing I’ve ever heard in my life, swear to God-”

Asahi blushed so bright Iwaizumi could feel the heat radiating off his cheeks. Daichi and Oikawa both hid grins as Asahi gingerly slipped his arm around the smaller boy’s waist. Noya beamed, nuzzling into his side. Iwaizumi couldn’t help but notice that he was almost painfully thin under his ragged clothes, and he looked at Daichi and Asahi like they were his whole world. Closet or not, Iwaizumi thought, that kid had badly needed to be found.

“How long will it take you to get a message to the storm skippers?” Oikawa asked Daichi. He pulled the bubbling pot of tea off its perch and poured it out into a random collection of mugs assembled from his camping gear and the tiny kitchen on the fishing boat. With the laughter draining away, the tension laced back through his shoulders, fingers tangled tight and white knuckled around his mug as he buried his nose in the steam. Iwaizumi leaned on his shoulder, reaching down to catch Oikawa’s restless hand with his.

Daichi and Asahi exchanged a glance. “Well...you guys aren’t far off the big shipping route, so…” he waved a hand in the air, calculating. “Two days at the outside?”

“Bokuto’s meeting us with the bison flight, right? If he can fly the message to the Air Temple, it might be faster than waiting for radio time.”

Oikawa nearly spat tea all over both of them. “ _Bokuto,”_ he choked, slamming his mug into the sand while everyone else around the fire stared at him. “Bokuto _Koutarou.”_

Daichi sat forward, his face lighting up. “You _know_ him?”

“The Bokuto with the air bison and the yellow eyes and the…”  Oikawa waved his hands around his head. “The _hair? That_ Bokuto?”

Asahi looked hunted. “Please tell me there’s not more than one of him.”

“Sounds like him…” Daichi slapped a hand to his forehead. “Holy shit, _Tooru…_ you’re _that_ Tooru! He used to sneak you into the bison barns!”

“Does he still have that tiny little midget bison - what was her name? The one that licks people?”

“Kirei!” Daichi grinned. “She’s not so tiny anymore. Still licks everyone though.”

“Daichi-flavor’s her favorite,” Asahi added.

“What?” Oikawa looked scandalized. “She always made faces after she tasted me.”

Iwaizumi felt like the conversation had wandered into a different world without him. “A bison that _tastes_ people?”

Oikawa slapped both hands to his cheeks. “ _Ohmigod_ Iwa-chan, you _have_ to meet her! It’s fate! She’s blind just like you.”

“She tells humans apart by taste,” Daichi explained. “She’s adorable.” Iwaizumi looked thoughtful.

“Gods, last time I saw her Bo was still carrying her around in that baby backpack. I guess she’s out grown that by no-- _Iwaaaaaaa! Gross!”_

“ _Bleck.”_ Iwa wiped his tongue.

“Yup, that’s the face.” Daichi nodded sagely as Asahi and Noya fell over laughing.

“You taste like seaweed.”

“I taste _delightful,”_ Oikawa huffed, rubbing the wet spot on his cheek against his shoulder.

Iwaizumi smiled, cheeks warm and heart buzzing, and wrapped both arms around Oikawa’s waist, pulling him close. Oikawa hummed and snuggled into him, resting his head on Iwaizumi’s shoulder. His squirellotter climbed back into his lap and curled up, flipping her tail over her nose and purring quietly.

“Hey.” Iwaizumi hooked his chin over Oikawa’s shoulder and whispered in his ear.

“Hey what?”

Iwaizumi squeezed him tight, pressing his nose into Oikawa’s cheek. “We’re gonna be okay.”

* * *

 

After a few hours of lying awake listening to the waves, Iwaizumi sighed and extricated himself from Oikawa, sleeping the boneless sleep of the recently healed on his chest.

Iwaizumi lingered a moment, tracing his thumb over the curve of Oikawa’s cheekbone, long lashes tickling his skin. Oikawa didn’t so much as twitch... _he’s so tired_...and…

And it was just a few days to the harbor in Daichi’s little fishing boat, and then the short hop to the Air Temple and then...Iwaizumi brushed loose a few sweaty curls stuck to Oikawa’s skin.

And then another goodbye. And this one he couldn’t run away from.

Iwaizumi slipped out of the tent and out into the cool night air, wandered down the beach and sat where the breaking waves could wash over his toes. He sunk his fingers into the sand, let his awareness spread through a trillion tiny sand grains, deep into the bones of the island and the slope of the beach, the sleeping bulk of the ocean floor solid beneath the rolling waves…

He hugged his knees against his chest and idly traced a finger across the sweep of surf-smooth sand beside him. _The ridges of his spine, and here’s his nose, see?_ The moon dragon strung across the sky, always pointing the way home, always listening…?

That was a water tribe legend, wasn’t it? If you had a secret weighing on your heart, you can tell it to the moon to keep...Mattsun used to joke that the moon was probably sick to death of hearing about cheating husbands and teenage crushes.

Iwaizumi had never wasted much thought on what he missed, not being able to see...but a small, wistful part of him wished he knew what the moon looked like. He had spent his adolescence making an art form out of keeping his own secrets...but just now it would’ve been nice to have someone to talk to.

A sense of movement out on the water woke Iwaizumi from his reverie. Two small sleek shapes, splashing across the tops of the waves, hopping and thrashing closer to shore…

Iwaizumi smiled as the tangle of motion resolved itself in his mind: the familiar shape of a squirrelotter, dragging a thrashing fish longer than she was up the beach. The mother squirrelotter pinned her catch to the sand with both paws and bit sharply behind its eye, and Iwaizumi stifled a laugh as she purred to herself in obvious satisfaction. He stayed still, not wanting to startle her...but to his surprise, she headed straight for him, dragging her prize behind her. She stopped a few feet away and nudged the big fish towards him, sitting back on her hind legs and and cocking her head. Iwaizumi blinked.

“Oh...thanks, I’m good.” A trilled question. “Yeah, I’m sure.”

He got what seemed to be an otter shrug in return, and laughed and wrinkled his nose as she ripped happily into the fish. “Must burn a lot of calories taking care of all those kids, huh?”

When the fish was nothing but a scribbly outline of bones against the sand, the squirrelotter carefully cleaned her paws and smoothed her whiskers...and then she bounced over to Iwaizumi, curled up beside him, and rested her chin on his thigh. Iwaizumi froze, heart thrilling with delight, and slowly, gently lowered a hand to scratch behind her ears. After a few long, soft minutes, the otter purrs became otter snores, warm against his skin.

“Can’t sleep?” Daichi said, settling into the sand nearby. Iwaizumi started - he’d been so lost in his own head he hadn’t heard Daichi’s footsteps.

Iwaizumi just shrugged, tapping a finger against his temple. “Too much going on, I suppose. You?”

“Ah, I don’t sleep so much anyway,” Daichi said lightly, reaching into his pocket. “Lost the habit, you could say.” There was a soft, metallic clink followed by a slosh, and Iwaizumi arched an eyebrow as Daichi held out a flask in his direction.

He shrugged and took it. The liquor burned on his tongue, sharp and unfamiliar, with a sugary bite that left his tongue tingling, and a taste that reminded him of the way pine trees smelled. Daichi had the good grace to smother his laugh as Iwaizumi passed the flask back.

“How’s your man doing?” Daichi asked, jerking his head towards their camp up the beach.

“ _My man,”_ Iwaizumi mumbled into his knees. Daichi grinned.

“Oh c’mon, you can’t tell me I read _that_ wrong.”

“Nooo, no…” Iwaizumi waved him off. “Just...hadn’t heard it put like that.” His cheeks were heating up again. “It’s...pretty new.”

“ _Really.”_ Daichi tipped his head with a faint smile, the ocean breeze ruffling his short-cropped hair. “I would’ve guessed you two were lifelong friends. You guys just...fit, y’know?”

Iwaizumi snorted, curling in on himself again. “This time last week all I wanted was for him to drop me at the Air Temple and fuck off back to wherever he came from, and keep my feet on the ground for the rest of my life. “Daichi laughed softly. Iwaizumi sighed, smiling in spite of himself. “It has been a long-ass week.”

“Sounds like it.”

“I think I’m gonna miss this island. I’m really gonna miss it, how fucked is th at?” Iwaizumi scooped up a handfull of sand, let it trail through his fingers to be snatched away by the quickening wind. “Feels like...it all feels like a charm. Or maybe a curse. Like everything ends when we setp off this island, like the spell breaks and it all goes back to normal…” Oikawa would be just the insubstantial slip of fluff and arrogance he’d first seen in his mother’s garden, and Iwaizumi would be just the sullen statue dressed up like a noble boy, torn between two worlds and hiding from both and terrified of ever taking his feet off the ground…

And Daichi was watching him, head on one side. He had eyes like Oikawa’s wide and soft and watchful, but none of Oikawa’s _edges,_ the feeling of something wound breaking-tight under his skin, like he was supported by wires like his glider, all tension and leverage pulling against itself and ready to snap at any second, send him skidding off in a new direction. Daichi just...listened.

“That doesn’t sound like in love with this island,” he said gently. “That sounds like scared of everywhere else.”

Iwaizumi huffed (he’d picked up _another_ one of Oikawa’s tics, godsdammit), hunching his shoulders tighter. _Might as well smack him in the face and yell ‘you’re right!’_ he thought ruefully.

“What happens now?” he mumbled, with a helpless shrug. There was a long silence, loud with the rushing of the incoming surf.

Daichi held out the flask again. Iwaizumi took it.

“I’ve never been in love before,” he said, the burn of alcohol making his tongue clumsy. “Hell, I’m not sure I’m in love _now._ It’s been a week… a damn _week…”_  Saying it all aloud was a relief, almost as intoxicating and Daichi’s sharp, piney liquor. And Daichi was a good listener. “Is this what it’s supposed to feel like? Is this how normal relationships are supposed to go?”

Daichi laughed at that. He took a hit from the flask and stretched out on the beach, letting the breakers foam over his legs and soak his pants where they were cuffed around his knees. “Man, I am the _wrong_ person to ask about ‘normal’ relationships.” He stuck both hands under his head and smiled wistfully up at the stars, his eyes tracing the graceful arc of the moon dragon strung out above their heads. “My first boyfriend turned out to be the moon.”

“That’s rough, buddy.”

“So far as I’ve seen...and I’ve kind of seen a lot, to be honest…You don’t just fall in love and keep it the same, forever. You choose it, every damn day. ” Daichi smiled up at the stars, kicking one leg over the other. “I don’t think there’s a person on this earth who’s managed to do love _right._ I don’t think there _is_ a right, anymore. I think there’s people who make you happy, and you hold onto them tight as you can.”

“Like this Bokuto guy who makes your heart speed up every time you say his name?” Iwaizumi smirked.

It was nice to feel _Daichi_ blushing hot for a change. “‘S complicated,” he muttered, taking another shot from his flask.

“ _Is_ it.”

“Well, no, not really, it’s just...hard to articulate…” he dragged both hands down his face with a dramatic groan. “My life is _weird,_ Iwa.”

_“_ Y’don’t say,” Iwaizumi grinned, snatching the flask back. “You dated the moon and the first natural born airbender in  two hundred years stole your wallet...I think I believe you.” _Must be where he comes by that ‘wise-beyond-his-years’ vibe,_ Iwaizumi reflected.

“Hey.” Daichi glanced over his shoulder. “There’s a lamp on under the glider...I think Oikawa might be lookin’ for you.”

“Ah, hell…” now that he mentioned it, Iwaizumi could hear the faint buzz of Oikawa’s safety lantern undercutting the sound of the waves. “I’d better go make sure he’s okay.”

“Hey. Iwa.” Daichi caught him with a hand on his shoulder as Iwaizumi scrambled to his feet.  “Lemme ask you this...do you _want_ to go to the air temple?”

Iwaizumi turned his face away, lip catching between his teeth. _What about you? What about Iwa Hajime...what’s he want?_

_I don’t even know who he_ is, _Oikawa…_

“Maybe that was the wrong question,” Daichi said with a faint smile. “Just...don’t go chasing _normal,_ alright? Maybe it’s complicated, maybe it looks weird to everyone else, maybe it only lasts ‘til you step off this island...so what? If it makes you happy, _hold on,_ man.”

There was an edge to his voice, something hot and hard and complicated under those simple words, _hold on,_ and it left Iwaizumi wondering once again just what Daichi had seen in his short life.

_More than you have, that’s for sure…_

Iwaizumi sighed, and clapped Daichi’s shoulder in return. Then he turned and headed back up the beach.

 

Oikawa was sitting up when he ducked back into their tent under the glider, hair sticking up in all directions and staring muzzily at the lit lamp balanced on his knees. He’d woken up alone, got as far as sitting up and lighting the lamp...and then apparently just stalled out, brain too fuzzy for any more decision making. His eyes widened just for a second when Iwaizumi slipped back into the tent, and then fluttered low again, like his lids were too heavy to hold up. He held out his arms, hands flopping limp at the ends of his wrists, and Iwaizumi huffed a laugh and knelt beside him, letting Oikawa flop his arms around his waist and snuggle into his chest.

“Where’d you go?” he mumbled, burrowing into Iwaizumi’s collarbones. “Didn’t know where you were…”

“Sorry, ‘Kawa...I couldn’t sleep. I was just down on the beach talking to Daichi.”

Oikawa sniffed, eyebrows pulling together in a pout. “You smell like gin.”

“It was a _good_ talk.” Iwaizumi traced his fingertips over Oikawa’s face and laughed, rubbing at the furrows between his brows. “You’re gonna give yourself wrinkles if you keep makin’ that face.”

Oikawa grumbled, nuzzling into Iwaizumi’s neck again. He blew the lantern out and dragged Iwaizumi gracelessly back into the bedroll with him, rolling close and draping himself over Iwaizumi’s chest.

“You okay?” Iwaizumi asked softly, running his hands through Oikawa’s messy hair. Oikawa’s arms tightened around him.

“Don’t want it to be tomorrow…” he mumbled, still hiding in Iwaizumi’s neck. “I don’t...I’m not ready to say goodbye yet, Iwa-chan.”

Iwaizumi hugged him tight, burying a shaky sigh in Oikawa’s hair. “Me either.”

“You don’t have to go, you know…” Oikawa suddenly bolted up on his elbows, voice still tired and strained with emotion. His hands found Iwaizumi’s face in the dark, feeling his expression just like Iwaizumi did to him. “What’s stopping us, we’re both grown men...you could just tell the Air Temple ‘thanks no thanks’ and come with me, just stay with me...once the glider’s fixed we can go anywhere...everywhere, anywhere we want, Iwa-chan. _Together.”_

_Anywhere, everywhere, together..._ the thought went through Iwaizumi like a bolt of lightning to the heart. _Together, just come with me...once the glider’s fixed...just come with me, just_ hold on…

_Once the glider’s fixed…_

“Hey.” Iwaizumi sat up, putting both hands on Oikawa’s shoulders to nudge him back. “Now that you’re healed, and your brace is fixed...how long do you think it’ll be before you can fly again?”

Oikawa blinked in the dark. “A week, maybe? I’ve just got to let the healing rest now…”

“And you’ve got enough wire to restring the wings, right?”

Iwaizumi felt Oikawa starting to smile, arms winding around his neck. “We could build my girl four new wings if we had to.”

Iwaizumi grinned, pressing his forehead against Oikawa’s. “Then _screw_ Dateko, ‘Kawa. Daichi can take the message to the Storm Skippers. I don’t want to go back to the real world yet. There’s nothing for us out there that won’t still be there in a week, so what do you say?” He kissed Oikawa soft and sweet, drinking in the shiver that raced down his spine. “Let’s rescue ourselves.”

* * *

 

Oikawa lay on his back under the _Furudate’s_ spread wing, squinting in the dim light at the tension gauge hooked over the wire. Still holding tension...Oikawa ran his fingers down the wires, smiling at the shower of musical notes. Every one still holding tension.

Footsteps crunched up the beach, and Oikawa bolted upright, scrambling out from under the repaired wing as Iwaizumi trudged out of the tree line with an armload of firewood, squirrellotters bounding around his feet. Their three-legged friend launched from her napping spot on the gilder wind to perch on Oikawa’s shoulder, wrapping her tail around his neck for balance.

“Nothing lost its tension in the last three minutes?” Iwaizumi said with a smirk, dropping the stack of wood and straightening up with a groan.

“Constant maintenance is _key_ Iwa-cha-- _woah…”_

Iwa arched his back with a sigh, stretching out kinked muscles. He wasn’t wearing a shirt. Oikawa completely lost track of what he’d been saying. And his mother tongue in general. The curl at the corner of Iwa’s lips, dimpling his cheeks and crinkling his eyes, said he knew _exactly_ what he was doing.

“Sorry, what were you saying?”

“Mmm, who cares.” Oikawa tossed his tools over his shoulder, not caring where they landed, and flopped into Iwa’s arms for a hug.

A few days ago, Iwaizumi would have rolled his eyes and teased him, but today he just leaned into it, pulling Oikawa tight against him. Their time was ticking down, slipping away with the setting sun as it dropped below the horizon and lit the sea on fire, and they each held on tighter to the other and hoped like hell that time would stop as long as they stayed in each other’s arms.

“Tomorrow, huh?” Iwaizumi murmured. A cool breeze blew across the island, carrying the bite of the oncoming dusk, and Iwa lifted his sweaty face into it with a smile, leaning his head against Oikawa’s.

“It’s time, isn’t it?” Oikawa sighed, tracing a finger around the top of his knee brace, clamped back in its familiar place around his thigh.

“It’s time,” Iwaizumi agreed. He squeezed his arm tight around Oikawa’s waist, and pulled away to kneel by the fire, wedging another branch of driftwood under the soup pot bubbling over the flames.

_And where are you going?_

“Hey.” Oikawa knelt, nuzzling up against Iwaizumi’s side. He fished in one of the pouches on his tool belt and brought out a bundle the size of his palm, wrapped in a scrap of wing canvas. “I’ve got something for you.”

“Is _this_ why you disappeared all morning?” Iwaizumi said with a smile, letting Oikawa set the bundle in his hands.

“Yeah, sorry it took so long. I had to chase a lot of parrots…”

“Parrots…?” Iwaizumi’s brows pulled together in concentration as he unwrapped Oikawa’s gift, tracing the shape...two short lengths of wire, each bent in a C-shape, and attached to them…

“ _Oh.”_ Iwaizumi’s eyes flew wide as he ran his fingers down the veins of two pairs of long feathers, each strung on a thread and wound tight around the wire. Oikawa picked one set out of his hand and carefully hooked the wire around the rim of his ears.

“I thought since, y’know, you lost your other ones...I know the real feathers won’t last as long, but…” he trailed off. Iwaizumi reached up and tugged the feathers gently, his eyes very wide and his face very still.

“And they’re green!” Oikawa blurted. “I mean, I know you don’t really care since...but...yeah, they’re green. Uh. They match your eyes.”

The silence lasted long enough for the first flutterings of panic to curl around Oikawa’s stomach. Then Iwaizumi’s full weight hit him dead in the center of the chest, knocking them both back into the sand with Iwaizumi’s arms locked around Oikawa’s neck and his face buried in his shoulder.

“Iwa?”

“ _You idiot.”_ Iwaizumi’s voice was thick and choked with tears, But Oikawa only had time to feel the briefest bolt of panic before Iwaizumi was kissing him, fingers tangled tight in his hair. Oikawa kissed back with a gasp of relief against his lips, flattening his hands across Iwaizumi’s bare back to pull him closer.

“You idiot, Tooru,” Iwaizumi repeated, nudging his nose against Oikawa’s. “You _idiot,_ I love you so much…”

Oikawa squeaked and hugged him tighter, pressing his face into the curve of Iwaizumi’s neck. “I love you too, I love you _so_ much Iwa…”

Iwaizumi’s gentle, calloused fingertips swept under his eyes, catching the tears before they could fall. “I knew you’d cry,” he said with a grin.

“Oh _says you,”_ Oikawa huffed, ducking to hide in his shoulder again. Iwaizumi’s hand curled protectively around the back of his head, stroking through his tangled hair.

“Ah, hell,” he sighed quietly, tugging the feathers again with his free hand. “You romantic jerk. How’m I ever supposed to top this?”

Oikawa tilted his head, looking up at Iwaizumi’s face silhouetted against the fading sunset. “Answer a question for me?”

Iwaizumi just cocked his head, waiting, though the smile slipped off his face. Oikawa swallowed hard, and managed to keep most of the wobble out of his voice as he asked, “Where’re we going tomorrow, Iwa?”

Iwaizumi closed his eyes for a long, long moment. He slid of Oikawa’s lap and leaned into his side, resting his head on his shoulder. Oikawa bit his lip and waited, his stomach tying in knots.

“A week ago it wouldn’t have even been a question,” Iwaizumi whispered. His hand found Oikawa’s and he laced their fingers together, holding on white-knuckle tight. “I really am the spoiled rich kid you thought I was, Oikawa.” He dipped his head, running a hand through his hair with a sharp, bitter laugh. “Y’know, I don’t think I’ve ever done anything in my life that was hard. Not _really_ hard. Just grabbed at whatever was easy, whatever I wanted, cause...fuck, why do anything else?”

“So what is it now?” Oikawa whispered, echoing a question asked in a cramped hotel room, a lifetime ago and a world away. “What is it you want?”

Iwaizumi just turned his head, and buried his face in Oikawa’s chest.

“It’d be so easy,” he mumbled. “Just grab what I want, follow you and stay close...and do what? I’m worse than useless in the air, ‘Kawa, and we both know it.” He sat back on his heels, cupping his hands around Oikawa’s face to feel is expression, voice tight with fear. “I have a chance to _do_ something at the Air Temple. Gods know I did nothing to earn it but I _have_ it...I could make something, something _real.”_ He pressed their foreheads together, thumb brushing the corner of Oikawa’s mouth. “If I’m gonna be with you, I want to be a partner you can be _proud_ of, not just a puppy following you ‘cause I’m afraid to be alone and I’d miss you every second you’re gone, but--”

Oikawa caught his face and kissed him hard and deep, the taste of tears bitter on both their lips. Iwaizumi shivered, flinging his arms around Oikawa’s neck again and nuzzling in close.

“You’re not mad?” he asked when they broke apart, his fingertips searching Oikawa’s face.

“Awww, Iwa…” Oikawa caught his hands, bringing his fingers to his lips to feel the smile. “Mad that you didn’t take the suggestion I made when I was half asleep? No, you’re right.” He tipped his head up and pressed his lips to Iwaizumi’s eyelids, each in turn. “Go to the Air Temple, Iwa-chan. Nothing’s gonna keep me away from you for long.”

“You better not get marooned on anymore islands,” Iwaizumi muttered, burrowing into Oikawa’s shoulder again. “‘Least not without me.”

Oikawa laughed quietly, burying his face in Iwaizumi’s spiky hair. “I should be so lucky.”

 

They loaded the glider before first light, just as the wind began to pick up, chasing the outgoing tide. Iwaizumi took every chance to tease Oikawa about his clumsiness in the pre-dawn gloom, giggling as he swore and fumbled his way through his pre-flight checks. A row of squirellotters watched them solemnly from the treeline, their fur still rumpled from sleep.

After a long string of _clunks_ and some particularly virulent swearing from the cockpit, the _Furudate’s_ battery-powered engine rolled to life, making the glider jolt forward against its locked wheels. Iwaizumi sighed and stepped back, slamming the last of the storage compartments closed as Oikawa set the engine to idling and hopped out of the cockpit.

“Are we ready to go?”

“Ready to go…” Iwaizumi echoed softly. He picked up his boots, but didn’t put them on just yet, digging his toes into the sand one final time. Their camp, their home of the last few weeks, was nothing but a series of scuffmarks in the sand, spread out around the idling glider.

“Sun’s coming up,” Oikawa said.

“Mm.” Iwaizumi turned his face to the warmth of the rising light, and leaned his temple against Oikawa’s cheek. They stayed that way for a long moment, wrapped in silence as sunlight spilled over the eastern horizon.

“One more thing,” Iwaizumi said, pulling a step away from Oikawa. He knelt, thrusting both hands deep into the sand. Something rumbled, deep in the bones of the island, and the loose slabs of Iwaizumi’s storm break shuddered, shook and sank back into the earth. The sand rolled over them, like they’d never been there at all. Iwaizumi straightened up and traced a toe around the outline of his footprints in the sand, where he’d hardened it to rock chasing Oikawa and the wave. Oikawa caught his hand.

“Leave those,” he said, squeezing Iwaizumi’s fingers in his. “Let’s leave _something._ Something to show that we were here.”

“You’re such a sap.” Iwaizumi smiled, squeezing his hand in return. His head turned towards the glider, and his expression softened. “Hey. I think you’ve got one more goodbye.”

“Hm?” Oikawa turned himself...and a ball of brown and yellow fuzz launched off the wing of the glider and latched onto his jacket. The squirrelotter with the twisted leg scrambled up his front and perched on his shoulder, tail wrapped around his neck, and chattered bossily in his ear.

“Hey, little girl.” Oikawa smiled and scooped her off his shoulder, holding her up at eye level as she continued to scold her. “I’m gonna miss you most of all, fluffball.” He scratched a finger behind her ears, and set her down gently on the beach.

The squirellotter cocked her head with a confused trill, and hopped back over to Oikawa’s feet. Her mother emerged from the trees and came cautiously down the beach, watching Oikawa closely.

“Awww...c’mon, fluffball…” Oikawa’s voice wavered. The little squirellotter reached up, claws slipping on the smooth leather of his boot, and trilled piteously. “I know girl, but I can’t take you with me. You belong here…” He bent down, but pulled back as she tried to climb into his hands, tried to nudge her gently back to her mother with the toe of his boot. She folded her ears back and skittered away, still chirping at him in confusion. Oikawa swiped his eyes. “Sorry,” he mumbled, stepping back.

The mother squirellotter had come up level with the smallest of her litter. She licked the baby a few times, on general principles, and sat back on her hind legs, regarding first Oikawa, then Iwaizumi with intense, almost human focus.

She appeared to reach a decision.

The adult squirellotter dropped back to all fours with a decisive chirp, and nuzzled her baby’s nose. She pulled her close with a paw to lick a few tangles out of her downy fur...and then picked her up by the scruff of her neck and set her down firmly on Oikawa’s boots.

Even standing behind him, Iwaizumi could sense the way Oikawa’s face lit up. “Y-you’re sure?” he said, his eyes brimming with tears again. The mother squirrellotter barked firmly. “I’ll take good care of her, I promise!”

Iwaizumi couldn’t help but laugh as Oikawa gathered up his little friend, who ran up his arms to rub her head against his cheek. The mother squirellotter turned to him, and tipped her head. “I’ll take care of both of them, I promise.” He knelt and held out a hand. After a long, still moment, she came just close enough to bump her nose against his fingertips, and then she was gone, disappearing back into the shelter of the trees. Iwaizumi smiled, and stood to wrap his arms around Oikawa’s waist, hooking his chin over his unoccupied shoulder.

“If she’s coming with us, I think she needs a name.”

“Hm. Well…” Oikawa held his little friend up to eye level again, scratching the soft spot under her chin. “The Bhanti tribe still use the old Air Nomad languages to name their bison, and _you’re_ just another flying furball, after all…” he grinned. “How ‘bout _Anzu?_ Apricots - your favorite thing in the world. What do you think, huh?”

Anzu braced her paws on his nose and trilled her agreement, and the sun breached the horizon and spilled warm yellow daylight across the island.

Iwaizumi squeezed Oikawa tighter, pressing his face into the back of his neck for a second. “It’s time,” he whispered against his lover’s soft, warm skin.

“It’s time,” Oikawa echoed, turning in his arms. He leaned their foreheads together again and shut his eyes, trying to fix the feel of Iwaizumi’s breath against his lips in his memory for the weeks ahead. “They’ll rotate us out after a few flights to the pole, and I’ll be furloughed for awhile,” he whispered, running his fingers through Iwaizumi’s hair. Iwaizumi brushed a soft kiss against his cheek. “I’ll bring you something from the South Pole.”

“Ah, hell, Tooru.” Iwaizumi’s gentle fingers curled around his cheeks, and he rubbed his thumb against the creases at the corners of Oikawa’s closed eyes. “You don’t need to bring me anything. I just want to know you’re out there, seeing the world like you’re meant to see it. Go chase the horizon...as long as you come home to me.”

“I’ll _always_ come back to you.”

“Yeah?” Iwaizumi turned his face up for a kiss as the rising dawn wind caught in his hair and made his new green feathers flutter against his skin. The _Furudate_ danced against its moorings as the wind pulled at its wings, ready to fly again. “Then bring me the horizon, Tooru.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you
> 
> ~Kenji


	8. Epilogue: The Best By Far is You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A year and a bit later

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, maybe "within a week" was optimistic.
> 
> Chapter title comes from [this song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkh6q9-RkDE), which is a really perfect Storm Season song I of course didn't discover until after I finished the bulk of the fic.
> 
> And if you're wondering about Daichi, yes. He is. They are. Yes, all three of them. He wasn't kidding when he said his life was weird.

 

_ A year and a bit later _

“Is that the Air Temple?”  Kuroo braced his hands on the lip of the leather bison saddle and leaned out as far as he could, squinting at the shapes solidifying out of the spires of clouds and fog all around them. 

“That’s it,” Bokuto nodded amiably from his perch on his bison’s neck, and leaned forward to ruffle the wool behind her big round ears. “Take us down, girl.”

“Oi, Kenma, look!” Kuroo elbowed the boy next to him, leaning out further and shading his eyes. “You can see the towers.”

His foster brother flicked a quick glance in his direction, and then buried his nose in the thick book in his lap again. “You’re going to fall and die and I’m not going to be sorry,” he said, barely audible over the rushing wind, and hunched his shoulders against the cold. 

Kuroo stayed where he was, grinning like a cat as the wind blew his hair back out of his eyes. The big air bison carrying them dawdled, drifting gently lower with lazy flicks of her big flat tail, enjoying her first flight after long months being grounded for another storm season.

“Which part’s the library?” Kuroo asked, as the tall spires of the temple became clearer in the fog. “Hey, Daichi--”

“Hm?” Daichi had spent most of the flight from Republic City dozing at the back of the saddle with his hands behind his head and his feet propped up on a heavy, canvas wrapped crate. Now he opened one eye and focused on Kuroo with a muzzy glare. “‘R we thereyet?”

“Almost.” Kuroo caught his hand and dragged him over to the front edge of the saddle, pointing excitedly down through the air bison’s ears. “Which part’s the library?”

“Nh?” Daichi rubbed his eyes, still not on a level with the waking world. “Like, all of it. This temple  _ is  _ a library.”

“That’s  _ all  _ library?” Kuroo’s grin got a few notches eviller, and he elbowed Kenma again. Kenma rocked in place, and shot him a murderous glare through his bangs. “And you were worried about not seeing Akaashi as much if you came to study here? Get him to visit once and he’ll never  _ leave.”  _ Kenma’s glare didn’t flicker, but the tips of his ears turned pink. 

“Isn’t Hinata with the Kitigawa Daiichi flight now too?” Daichi added, propping an elbow on Kuroo’s shoulder. “He’ll be here all the time once they get furloughed.” Kenma was buried in his book again, but he was working hard to hide a smile. Kuroo shot Daichi a grateful smile and draped both arms affectionately around his neck. 

“We’re coming in for a landing,” Bokuto called over his shoulder, pulling his tinted goggles down over his eyes. He leaned forward and ruffled the bison’s fur again. “Take us down, Hiromu.”

The big bison set them down with scarcely a bump, and lumbered over to one of the sparkling waterfalls tumbling down a rocky spire for a drink. 

“Can’t argue with that view,” Kuroo commented, over a noise like a straw draining the last bit of a building-sized milkshake. “Pretty…”

“ _ So  _ pretty,” Bokuto hummed, flopping over Daichi’s other shoulder. He wasn’t looking at the view. He nuzzled his nose against Daichi’s temple for a moment, and then went to check on Hisomu. She bumped her broad head affectionately against his chest, and went back to enthusiastically draining the stream. 

Kenma edged closer to Kuroo, hovering-half behind him with one finger marking his place in his book. He looked around slowly, eyes still downcast and his head tipped so his hair hid his face. Kuroo smiled fondly and dropped a heavy arm around his shoulders. Kenma’s knees buckled, and he shot Kuroo another glare. 

“Give it a chance, I bet you’ll love it here. And everyone says Hana’s a great teacher. Right Daichi?”

“Huh?” Daichi had been mostly lost in thought, staring up into the clouds curled around the temple spires as he leaned on Bokuto’s shoulder.

“You know Hana Misaki, right?” Kuroo prompted.

“Sort of? I know her husband better…” Daichi caught Kuroo’s glare over the top of Kenma’s head, and finally got the hint. “ _ Oh!  _ Oh, yeah, she’s really nice Kenma. She’s really easy to get along with, you’ll like her.”

“Know her husband better,” Bokuto giggled to himself, unfolding a rope ladder off Hisomu’s saddle. “Her husband had a giant crush on you when we were kids, you mean.”

Daichi instantly flushed pink. “He did  _ not.” _

“He  _ so  _ did.”

“I would argue he still does,” Kuroo grinned.

“I was just a positive roll model! He got attached…” Daichi protested. Bokuto and Kuroo exchanged a despairing glance. “Kenma, you’re sane. Help me out here.”

“Mmmm…” Kenma’s nose was back in his book, eyes flicking across the page. “Terushima would probably still lick whipped cream off your naked body for fifty cents.”

“I hate. You all,” Daichi grumbled, as Bokuto and Kuroo fell over each other laughing. He turned his back on them with great dignity and climbed onto Hisomu’s back to unbuckle the cargo crates strapped down in her saddle.

“Hey!  _ Hoy,  _ Daichi! Is that you?”

At the call, Kuroo and Bokuto looked up the hill towards the air temple, and Daichi straightened up on Hisomu’s back, grinning ear to ear.

“Iwa!”  Daichi hopped off the bison and scampered to meet the young man running down the hill towards them. “Been too long, man!” 

Kuroo raised his eyebrows as Daichi clasped forearms with the newcomer. “So that’s the famous Iwaizumi, huh?”

Bokuto chuckled at his expression. “We  _ warned  _ you about how hot he is.” He pecked Kuroo on the cheek, and bounced away to greet Iwaizumi. Kuroo frowned, still suspiciously sizing up. 

“He’s not  _ that  _ hot.”

Kenma spared Iwaizumi a split-second glance before disappearing back into his book. “He really is, Kuro.”

“He isn’t.”

“He is.”

“Isn’t. “

Kenma was silent. Kuroo sighed, and made for Hisomu’s ladder. “Well, I guess if-”

“He is.”

Kuroo glared down at Kenma, whose hair didn’t quite hide his smirk, and picked up one of the crates. He nudged Hisomu’s ear until she lowered her tail for him with a put upon sigh, and lugged the box down the broad, furry ramp. 

“Holy hells, what were we carrying, iron bars?”

“...pretty much, yeah,” Daichi said, wandering over with Iwaizumi in tow. “We had to go back to steel for this set,” he said to Iwaiumi, popping the lid off the crate Kuroo had brought down. “Aluminum just squishes when the letters are this small.”

“That’s okay, the extra weight shouldn’t matter too much,” Iwaizumi said, leaning over Daichi’s shoulder. He tugged idly on the feather ornaments, one gold and one green, half-tangled in the hair behind his ears. “Once we’ve got the printing press reinforced, it should be able to take the extra weight.”

“You mean once  _ I’ve  _ got the printing press reinforced,” Daichi grinned, dragging a toolbox out of the cargo crates.

“Well  _ yeah,  _ that’s why we pay you. You work, me credit.”

“Oikawa is rubbing off on you,” Daichi grumbled.

“Those’re  _ fighting  _ words, Sawamura--” Iwaizumi broke off suddenly, head tilting to the side as though in thought...and then turned towards Kuroo.

“Oh, sorry, we haven’t met, right? You must be Kuroo.”

Kuroo blinked as Iwaizumi stepped around the crate and held out a hand. Daichi prodded him with an elbow, and Kuroo remembered himself and took it. Iwaizumi’s hands were broad and strong, his palms striped with callouses almost as rough as Daichi’s. 

“Kuroo Tetsurou,” he said, trying to let some of the tension out of his shoulders. “And this is...where’d he go? And this is Kenma.” He looked around, and nudged Kenma out of the shadow of the air bison. “C’mon, say hi.”

Kenma edged behind him, eyes flicking over Iwaizumi from behind his curtain of hair. “H’lo.”

“Oh,  _ you’re  _ the Kenma Hana’s been courting, yeah?” Iwaizumi said with an easy smile. “She hasn’t shut up about you since she got your first letter.”

Kenma blinked, and dropped his head to hide a smile. Kuroo felt a rush of gratitude towards Iwaizumi, for taking him in stride so easily.

Bokuto was looking up, scanning around impatiently like he was expecting something.  “Hey, Iwa, where’s--”

The words weren’t out of his mouth before a bundle of brown-and-yellow fur hit him in the back of the head, scrambled up and over his face, and came to rest on his shoulder, front paws buried in the breast pocket of his jacket.

“--Anzu.” Bokuto finished, spitting fur.

“Oh, she’ll find you,” Iwaizumi said innocently. Anzu pulled her head out of Bokuto’s pocket with a dried apricot speared on her fangs, declaring her triumph with a muffled series of squeaks. Daichi rolled his eyes.

“She’s really got your number, man.”

“Yeah, they can always smell suckers,” Bokuto grinned, scratching the squirellotter’s chin. She purred happily, and then hopped to Daichi’s shoulder to sniff his face enthusiastically.

“Hey, furball. Wow, you’re getting big.”

Anzu looped her tail around Daichi’s neck, pointedly turning her back to Iwaizumi, and continued snacking. Daichi raised an eyebrow.

“Oh, she’s not speaking to me ‘cause I let Oikawa go flying without her. She doesn’t get that storm season is too dangerous for...for squirrellotters.” A brief, dark shadow flicked across his handsome face. Kuroo looked away, but Daichi clapped his shoulder comfortingly. Anzu crept down his arm to perch on Iwaizumi’s shoulder. She stuffed the rest of her apricot into her pouch and rubbed her head against his cheek. Iwaizumi smiled, running a finger down her back. “I know girl, I worry about him too.” He shook his head, and then picked up the heavy crate of printing blocks (without apparent effort), and smiled at Kenma. “C’mon.” He jerked his head up the slope towards the temple. “I’ll get this stuff up to the workshop and show you around.” 

Kenma glanced back at Kuroo, and then closed his book with a gulp.

“Okay, explain what you were telling Hana about in your letter. I think I got the gist of it, but--”

“You’re wasting space sticking to one letter per printing block,” Kema said bluntly, trailing after Iwaizumi. “Why not just combine common sounds on one piece?”

“We tried that, but the closer you pack raised letters together the more integrity you lose, no matter how good the paper is--”

“Why not get rid of the letters altogether and make a new symbol that’s easier to read by touch? Hana sticks to letters ‘cause that’s what she knows, but it’s all the same to  _ you,  _ right?”

“Oooh, good point--”

The debate faded up the hill, and Daichi set down his toolbox and elbowed Kuroo in the ribs. “You grin any wider the top of your head’s gonna fall off.”

Kuroo sniffed. “I’m  _ so  _ proud.”

“You’re such a  _ dad.  _ Help me with the rest of this stuff.”

“ _ Ooooiyah! KENMA!” _

The shout echoed across the air temple lawn, stopping Kuroo and Daichi in their tracks. They both turned to stare as a tiny orange-haired shape in a pilot’s uniform barrelled down the slope towards Kenma and Iwaizumi.

“Well  _ that’s  _ gotta be trouble,” Daichi remarked. Kuroo grinned.

“Not as much as you’d think.”

“ _ O-oh, Shoyou…”  _ Kenma’s voice was quiet as ever, but he wasn’t shying away from the newcomer, who’d latched onto both his arms. He gabbled something excitedly at Iwaizumi, who grinned and waved them off. 

“Interesting combination.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Oh, look!” Daichi pointed up at a tiny shape dropping through the clouds above the Air Temple. “There’s Oikawa.”

Kuroo gave him an impressed look. “You can tell at that distance?”

“Nah,” Daichi smiled, and nodded across the sloping lawn. “But he can.” 

Iwaizumi was running, the heavy crate abandoned on the grass behind him. He tore up the steep slope at a dead sprint, making for the glider runway at the top of the rise. Daichi shook his head with a fond smile. 

“Hana says he can tell the  _ Furudate  _ from any other glider before the rest of us can even  _ hear  _ it.”

The glider dropped out of the breaking clouds, low rays of sunlight catching on its green-and-white wings as he pulled up in a tight arc and set down lightly on the grassy runway. A slim red-and-gold figure was scrambling out of the cockpit before the propellers had stopped spinning. He paused barely long enough to kick one wheel lock into place before he was running too, flinging out his arms with a shout that was snatched away by the whipping springtime wind. A small brown-and-yellow shape detached from Iwaizumi’s shoulder and swept across the distance between them, latching onto Oikawa’s chest and scrambling up to perch in his hair an instant before Iwaizumi reached him. 

Neither one of them slowed down for an instant before they met, Iwaizumi slamming into Oikawa’s chest just short of a headlong dive. Oikawa’s long arms whipped around him, fisting in the back of his tunic and dragging him close as Iwaizumi buried both hands in his windblown hair. 

And then, after the frantic rush to get there, once they were in each other’s arms... they both went almost perfectly still. Iwaizumi melted against Oikawa’s chest, face buried in his shoulder as Oikawa curled over him, one hand cupped protectively around the back of Iwaizumi’s head. Kuroo could shake the feeling he was watching something he shouldn’t be, something  private and intimate. 

“Storm season must be hard on them…” he mumbled, looking away. Daichi glanced up at him sidelong, with a quick, soft smile.

Iwaizumi shifted back and reached up to ruffle Oikawa’s  hair, smiling up at him. He tugged gently at the ornaments looped around the shell of Oikawa’s ear, and Oikawa murmured something that made him crinkle his eyes and smile, nuzzling their noses together.

“Hey.” Bokuto cocked his head, and tipped the rim of his own ear. “Since when does Tooru have ear-feathers?” 

“It’s a noble clan thing,” Daichi said with a soft smile. “Means he’s engaged to the Iwaizumi heir. I don’t think his are feathers though…” he squinted, trying to make out the details of the lacquered green ornaments half-hidden in Oikawa’s hair. 

Kuroo grinned at him, draping an arm around his shoulders again. “You’ve never been to Seijoh, have you?” 

Daichi glared. “We south pole folk don’t get to travel like you city kids.” Kuroo smirked and hugged Daichi against his side.

“Those aren’t feathers. They’re leaves. Seijoh vine leaves.”

Daichi stared at the little tableau on the hilltop, and then groaned into his hands.

“That’s so cute I’m gonna throw up.”

Bokuto nodded sagely. “Yeah, that’ll happen with them.”

Up the hill, Iwaizumi had pulled back from his crushing hug and was running his hands down Oikawa’s arms, brows pulled down in intense concentration. His inspection continued all the way out to the tips of Oikawa’s fingers.

“You took your tape off,” he grumbled, feeling over the joints of the littlest two fingers on Oikawa’s right hand.

“I jammed those  _ weeks  _ ago, Iwa-chan,” Oikawa said, hiding a giggle behind his unoccupied hand 

“It’s the little stuff that builds up over time,” Iwaizumi lectured, carefully bending the rest of Oikawa’s knuckles and feeling the joints for swellings. “How’s your knee?”

“ _ Per _ fecto--owwww…”

“ _ Stop  _ it.” Iwaizumi swatted his ear again for good measure. “AT least let Daichi check out your brace while he’s here.”

Oikawa blinked. “Daichi?” he turned down the hill, and his tired eyes lit up. “ _ O-oh! Daichi!”  _

Daichi and Kuroo smiled, and Bokuto bounced to his feet, waving both arms over his head.

“ _ Tooruuuu!” _

_ “ _ Kou!” Oikawa flung out his arms and let Bokuto tackle-hug him all over again. “How’d the little fluffs take their first thunderstorms?” he asked, ruffling Bokuto’s hair. 

“Loudly. Same as usual.”

Oikawa started to laugh, then made a weird face and sneezed explosively. Iwaizumi nudged Bokuto in the ribs.

“Go stand downwind, you ball of allergens.”

“You’re...so mean...Iwa-chan…” Oikawa wheezed, between sneezes. 

Iwaizumi brushed his fingers over Oikawa’s blotchy cheeks and s ighed. “You still want to go hug the bison, don’t you?”

“ _ Pleaaaaaase?” _

Hisomu accepted Oikawa’s hug and associated sneezes with grace, and an affectionate headbutt to the chest, before Iwaizumi dragged him away again. 

“Hey, I’ve got something to show you,” he said, once the sneezing had subsided in the clearer air of the glider runway. Iwaizumi instantly looked suspicious, but Oikawa’s search through the compartments under the glider only turned up an innocuous roll of wing cable. Oikawa caught Iwaizumi’s hand, and set his fingers on a raised mark stamped on the spool. “Here. Feel.”

Iwaizumi’s eyebrows pulled together again as he traced the letters with his sensitive fingertips. “H.S.?”

“It’s a quality seal. Means this batch of cord passed the new acoustic test for flaws in the wires.”

“ _ Acoustic?  _ You don’t mean…”

“Yup! Required of all gliders in the Ba Sing Se workshop now. Turns out the tones the wires produce when they’re stretched perfectly match their tensile strength.” Oikawa grinned ear to ear, and leaned forward to kiss Iwaizumi on the forehead. “It’s called the Hajime Scale.”

Iwaizumi instantly blushed pink. Oikawa’s grin got wider. It was wiped from his face a second later by an explosion of squabbling voices, further up the hill. 

“I was just  _ wondering  _ where my problem children went,” he sighed. 

“Hey, you made it another flight without Kunimi snapping and killing both of them,” Iwaizumi said, grinning himself. “That’s a victory, right?”

Oikawa scraped both hands through his hair, leaving it sticking up in sweaty knots around his goggles. “Sometimes I wonder.  _ Oi! Hinata! Kageyama!” _

“--was a total fluke, you could only make a turn that sharp because you were drafting me--”

“I was  _ not,  _ I’ve been practicing all winter--”

Caught between the two feuding pilots, Kenma shot Kuroo a despairing glance. Oikawa seethed, drawing breath for another shout. 

“ _ Oi.  _ If you’ve got enough energy to argue that much you’ve got enough energy to unload a bison.” Both young pilots snapped their mouths shut and stared at Daichi, wide eyed. So did Oikawa. “C’mon, hop to it. Steel doesn’t move itself,” Daichi barked. 

“Yes, sir!”

“Why do they listen to  _ you?!”  _ Oikawa whined. Daichi gave him a blank smile. 

“Let’s just say I have...experience...with feuding ruffians.” 

Kuroo and Bokuto tried to look innocent. Oikawa just blinked owlishly. Iwaizumi stifled a laugh.

Daichi shooed the two young pilots down the hill with Bokuto and Kuroo trailing after them, and Oikawa and Iwaizumi were suddenly left alone on the hilltop, leaning against the glider side by side. Iwaizumi sighed, and leaned heavily into Oikawa.

“Hey.”

“Hi.”

Iwaizumi looped an arm around Oikawa’s waist and snuggled into him. “Missed you.” Oikawa kissed the top of his head, and Iwaizumi turned fully to bury his face in his shoulder. “I love you.”

“I l-lo-ove you t-t-t-oo--” Oikawa tried, and failed, to stifle a huge yawn, and flopped over Iwaizumi’s shoulders. “‘M  _ tired…” _

_ “ _ After two weeks of non stop rescue flights? How dare you.”

“Remind me again why I’m marrying you,” Oikawa grumbled into his hair.

“We both know you only did it to get your own ear feathers.”

Oikawa ran his fingertips down the metal leaves that framed his ear, his expression slipping into a distant smile. “It was  _ really  _ nice of your mom to get these made for me.”

“It’s the least she could do,” Iwaizumi grumbled. “She’s getting a lifetime’s supply of landscaping work out of me now.”

“Doesn’t she use Kyoutani too?”

“Kyoutani she  _ pays. I’m  _ ‘building character.’” He framed the phrase with sarcastic quotes in the air. Oikawa tipped his head to the side, curious.

“I’ve never seen you do that before.” 

“What, this?” Iwaizumi repeated the gesture. “Must’ve picked it up from Hana or someone...hey.” He furrowed his brow, and reached up to run his fingers down Oikawa’s face. “What’s wrong, Kawa?”

“What? Oh, nothing’s  _ wrong.”  _ Oikawa caught his hand, lacing their fingers together. “Just...different, you know? Every time I come back, you’re different, just a little.”

“Well that’s good,” Iwaizumi said, leaning into him with a smile that crinkled his nose. “I’d hate to still be the same guy I was a year ago. Who’d wanna marry that emo little jerk?”

“ _ Me.” _

_ “Nah.  _ The person  _ you  _ were a year ago, sure. But you’re different now too, right?” Iwaizumi looped his arms around Oikawa’s neck and pulled him close, rubbing his cheek against Oikawa’s stubbly jaw. “But you back then loved me back then, and you now loves me now. Whaddaya think, Kawa?” Iwaizumi ran his fingers through Oikawa’s hair, lingering over the delicate metal leaves. “Think whoever you are in five years will still love whoever I am in five years?”

Oikawa cupped his face in both hands, and Iwaizumi smiled, tilting up into him. “Five, ten, fifty, as long as the Gods give me...as long as you’ll have me, Iwa-chan.” 

Iwaizumi pushed up on his toes, and tugged Oikawa down for a kiss. 

“Hey.” Oikawa hooked his chin over Iwaizumi’s shoulder and whispered in his ear.   
“Hey what?”   
Oikawa squeezed him tight, pressing his nose into Iwaizumi’s cheek. “We’re okay.”


End file.
